New Carlsberg Glyptotek

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was founded by the brewer, Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914), who was one of the great industrial magnates of the 19th century and the greatest art patron Denmark has seen.

 Carl Jacobsen was a passionate collector. From the profits generated by his brewery Ny Carlsberg, Carl Jacobsen built a rich collection of art and cultural artefacts.

 In 1888 Carl Jacobsen gave his art collection to the public and began the building of Glyptoteket to house it. 

Another exceptional donation followed in 1899, this time of the master brewer’s vast collection of antiquities, which lead to the building of an entire new wing to the new museum.

Glyptoteket has been open to the public since 1897 and holds over 10,000 works primarily divided between ancient antiquities and Danish and French sculpture and painting from the 19th century.

Glyptoteket (græsk ”glyptos”,  betyder udskæring eller skulptur,  ”theke”, betyder der er et sted hvor noget er samlet eller opstillet).

Not like other museums
Carl Jacobsen’s conviction that art could beautify, touch and enrich the lives of everyone is till the rule at Glyptoteket. Brewing magnate Carl Jacobsen was an absolute believer in the didactic significance of art, but in contrast to the character of traditional museums he did not believe that either works of art or museum visitors should be overburdened with scientific and academic systems. Art should rather speak directly to the individual visitor. This was why Carl Jacobsen also set great store by works which made considerable impact, most of all masterpieces with a certain monumentality.

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek wintergarden

At the same time Glyptoteket was also to be an oasis. The museum’s richly varied architecture with the Winter Garden as a fertile point of rotation should give every visitor a chance to disengage from the day-to-day, making the visit a pleasure without any sense of obligation. The links between the intellectual, the sensuous and the purely relaxing make Glyptoteket a gift which continues to give of itself.

Marble statues and masterpieces, mummies and Mediterranean moods. With its unique blend of art and magnificent architecture, Glyptoteket is a place for active contemplation and quiet repose. The world-class collection of art and antiquities continues to offer new perspectives on human existence, culture and civilization as seen through 6.000 years of art.

Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914)

The founder of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914),  known as a brewing magnate, a patron of the arts and a passionate art collector. He collected sculpture from many periods but Greek and Roman marble sculpture, as well as that of 19th century France and Denmark became the principal areas of the collection.

Fascinated by sculpture
It was particularly sculpture which Carl Jacobsen collected as he believed that three-dimensional art came closest to the fundamental condition of mankind. Carl Jacobsen was an enthusiastic admirer of contemporary French artists, whose works he saw at the annual exhibitions in Paris.

Rayet-head

The first French work, La Musique by E. Delaplanche, he bought in 1878, and from that point onwards he acquired a couple of pieces each year. His first antiquity, the archaic Rayet Head, he bought in 1879.

The Rayet head is a statue head that is 19.5 cm high, and is named after the French archaeologist Oliver Rayet. Statue is made of marble from the island of Paros, and is from Greek archaic time, approx. 530 BC The statue is found in Athens over a grave on a burial site. The residence of the head is at the Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, since Carl Jacobsen acquired it in 1877.

By 1882 the young industrialist already had so many sculptures that he opened his collection to the public in the winter garden of his home. He called this The Glyptothek at Ny Carlsberg. Here was a judicious selection of works: a Roman sarcophagus, some portrait busts from the desert city of Palmyra, French statues and copies of Roman bronze statuettes discovered at Pompeii.

The collection rapidly expanded and from 1887 it was halcyon days for Jacobsen. It was then he made the acquaintance of the German archaeologist Wolfgang Helbig, who, over the next 25 years, acted as his agent in Rome in the acquisition of antiquities. At the same time he continued buying from the Paris Salon and also commissioned works directly from some of the French artists.

A collector with an impressive range
In his youth Carl Jacobsen also developed a desire to own paintings, particularly by the great Italian masters of the Renaissance and the Baroque. These he had familiarised himself with, and admired on his frequent travels around Europe. Carl Jacobsen managed to buy some fine paintings, though none by the very greatest masters – such as Raphael and Michelangelo.

italiens masters from renæssancen

Carl Jacobsen also acquired a large number of drawings by Danish and foreign artists and he created a significant collection of medals and plaquettes. What are quite extraordinary are the thousands of prehistoric stone tools which Jacobsen bought on a trip to Athens in 1887. 

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

In Carl Jacobsen last years he became fascinated by Asian art and he managed to create a fine, if modest, collection of sculpture in wood and bronze from China, Japan and Java. These were, however, only on exhibition at Glyptoteket for a few years. None of these areas of collecting was, though, subsequently associated with Carl Jacobsens name.

Carl Jacobsen purchased many plaster casts of famous ancient statues in other museums and in 1896 when the National Gallery of Denmark was inaugurated, the entire basement was fitted out as a museum for casts, and Carl Jacobsen became its director.

The Little Mermaid and other donations
For his entire life Carl Jacobsen was seriously committed to the city of Copenhagen and its decoration. In 1879 he established the Albertina Fund, named after Bertel (Alberto) Thorvaldsen, which was used to finance the installation of bronze copies of ancient statues in such locations as Ørsted Park. Carl Jacobsen initiated and paid for the erection of a spire on the Nikolaj Church, which had been burned down in 1795. In his final years the master brewer battled with Copenhagen City Council for permission to mount a spire on Copenhagen Cathedral, the Classicist Church of Our Lady, a battle he lost. In 1913 Carl Jacobsen paid for the famous sculpture The Little Mermaid by Edvard Eriksen, which was set up at Langelinie.

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Dantes Plads 7 1556 København V  +45 33 41 81 41

Opening hour
Tuesday-Sunday 11-18
Thursday 11-22
Monday Closed