The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Glypto-, from the Greek root glyphein, to carve and theke, a storing-place) is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The collection is built around the personal collection of the son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries, Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914).
Primarily a sculpture museum as indicated by the name, the focal point of the museum is antique sculpture from the ancient cultures around the Mediterranean including Egypt, Rome and Greece, as well as more modern sculptures such as a collection of Rodin works which is considered the most important outside France. However, the museum is equally noted for its collection of painting that include an extensive collection of French impressionists and Post-impressionists as well as Danish Golden Age paintings.
The French Collection includes works by painters such as Jacques-Louis David, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne are found in the museum, as well as those by Post-impressionists such as van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard. The museum's collection of Rodin sculptures are considered the most important collection of Rodin's sculptures outside France. The museum's collection also includes all the bronze sculptures of Degas, including the series of dancers. Numerous works by Norwegian-Danish sculptor Stephan Sinding are featured prominently in various sections of the museum.
Carl Jacobsen was a dedicated art collector with a special taste for classical sculpture. When his private Villa in 1882 was extended with a winter garden, sculptures soon outnumbered plants. The same year the collection was opened to the public. In the following years the museum was gradually expanded until reaching a total of 19 galleries in 1885. Vilhelm Dahlerup designed the first 14 galleries while Hack Kampmann designed the last four as well as the reconstruction of the winter garden. In 1896 the first wing of the present Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek opened as a purpose-built building, designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup which became the home of the Modern Collection. Fahlerup also designed the winter garden and (dome)) that was added in 1903-06. In 1906 followed the Antique Collection which was moved to a new wing, designed by Hack Kampmann.In 1996 the museum was further extended with the addition of the Henning Larsen Wing designed by Danish architect Henning Larsen. In 2006, the building underwent a major renovation programme under the direction of Danish architects Dissing + Weitling.
The building is often noted for its elegance in its own right and the synthesis it creates with the works of art.
The Dahlerup Wing, the oldest part of the museum, is an lavish historicist building. The facade is in red brick with polished granitecolumns in a Venetian renaissance style. It houses the French and Danish collections.
The Kampmann Wing is a more simple, neo-classical building, built as a series of galleries around a central auditorium used for lectures, small concerts, symposiums and poetry readings.
The two wings are connected by the Winter Garden with mosaic floors, tall palms, a fountain and topped by a dome made in copper and wrought iron.
The Henning Larsen Wing is a minimalistic infill, built in a former inner courtyard and affording access to the roof. Official meetings and banquets sometimes take place in the Glyptotek, such as the certification of Polio-free Europe, 21 June 2002.
The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's collections comprise more than 10,000 works of art.
The Antique collection display 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. The German archeologist Wolfgang Helbig was Carl Jacobsens 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 lead 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.
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 Gaugin 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.
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.
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, Picasso and Giacomettis.
The collection also comprises a small collection of Modern paintings of artists such as Arp, Ernst, Miró, Poliakoff and Gilioli.
