Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum of international stature in the centre of Copenhagen, founded in 1888 by the brewer Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914) who created one of the largest private art collections of his time.

It was named after his brewery, Ny Carlsberg, with the addition of "Glyptotek", meaning collection of sculpture.

The Glyptotek houses over 10.000 works of art divided up into two principal collections.

The museum contains two main departments of ancient and modern art, offering a unique combination of art in impressive architectural surroundings.

- The Department of Antiquities houses excellent collections of Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman art, providing a delightful stroll through 3500 years of art and history.

- The Modern Department focuses on Danish painting and sculpture of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as French art of the same period.

Enjoy paintings from Denmark's Golden Age, and experience French Impressionism as well as more than 40 works by Gauguin.

It is also possible to see the complete series of Degas' bronzes and 35 sculptures by Rodin.

Collections

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's collections comprise more than 10,000 works of art.

- Antique collection

The Antique collection displays sculptures and other antiquities from the ancient cultures around the Mediterranean.

The extensive Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collection comprises marble statues, small terra cotta statues, reliefs, pottery and other artifacts.

The Etruscan collection is the largest outside Italy. Theidoit Jacobsen's broker in Rome for 25 years, acquiring more than 950 sculptures and Etruscan antiquities for the Ny Carlsberg Museum.

The Egyptian Collection comprises more than 1,900 pieces, dating from 3000 BCE to the 1st century CE and representing both Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom and the Roman Period.

It was founded in 1882 when Carl Jacobsen made his first Egyptian acquisition, a Sarcophagus purchased from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Many of the objects in the collection were augmented when the Ny Carlsberg Foundation sponsored excavations in Egypt in the beginning of the 20th century led by the English Egyptologist W. M. F. Petrie.

The holdings include several mummies, displayed in a crypt-like gallery below the normal galleries.

The Near Eastern Collection spans a period of 7150 years, the oldest artifact being from 6500 BCE and the youngest being from 650 CE, featuring such cultures as the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Persia.

- French Collection

The main focus of the French Collection is 19th-century French painting and sculpture.

The painting collection contains works by such painters as David and Manet, as well as a large collection of Impressionist painters such as Monet, Cézanne and Bonnard.

The single painter represented with most paintings is Paul Gauguin with more than 40 works.

The museum also holds a large collection of French 19th-century sculpture by artists such as Carpeaux and Rodin, the Rodin collection being one of the largest in the world, as well as a complete collection of Degas' bronze sculptures.

- Danish Collection

The Danish Collection contains a large collection of Danish Golden Age paintings by painters such as Eckersberg, Købke and Lundbye.

It also contains the largest representation of Danish Golden Age Sculpture in the country.

- European Collection

The European Collection comprises works from the 18th to the 20th century.

Represented sculptors include Neoclassicists such as Canova, Sergel, Carstens, Flaxman, Rauch and Baily, as well as Modernists like Meunier, Klinger, Picasso and Giacometti.

The collection also comprises a small collection of Modern paintings of artists such as Arp, Ernst, Miró, Poliakoff and Gilioli.