Copenhagen - The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Date of visit: 15th October 2015

I promised that I'll make this entry short. This entry is necessary to me since I admired arts too personally lately. I became a Facebook friend with an artist who works as a painter. I first know Rafiee Ghani  last year, in 2014 from a local newspaper which I hardly read. Seeing his painting pain my heart since my house is not yet ready for me to simply go to his gallery and grab 1. He's been following someone that I follow and later I came to know that he is also a great traveler. He's been to Pakistan and India like I did and his arts are world class and his choice of colors are similar to Takashi Murakami. Hubby agreed that we should have his painting 1 day in our house, the one to be hang at the staircase where 1 day we will photo-shoot all children's wedding photo.

Every artist must dream to have his painting to be as famous as Monalisa by Leornardo Da Vincci where it is now being display in Musee-de-Louvre, right?. Well, first and foremost Glyptotek means a storing-place, so, Ny Carslberg Glptotek means “Carlsberg Store”.  In reality Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an of a famous art museum in Copenhagen. Admission fee of certain amount is chargeable to its visitor, i.e. DKK 110 for adult like me. The museum collection is built around the personal collection of Carl Jacobsen (1842–1914), the son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries. The building is often noted for its elegance in its own right and the synthesis it creates with the works of art. Yes, I am in love with the building itself. Just see what I have to share in this entry, it is so so beautiful, so regretful that I could not get inside as we arrived too early.

From the shared images in many other website, the museum is primarily a sculpture museum as indicated by its name. The focal point of the museum is antique sculpture collected 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 includes 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 and Cézanne, as well as those by Post-impressionists such as Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard. The museum's collection 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.

Inside are the garden's that display mostly statues from early collection of Carl Jacobsen

The first Carl Jacobsen was a dedicated art collector. He was particularly interested in antique art, but over the years he also acquired a considerable collection of French and Danish sculptures. When his private villa in 1882 was extended with a winter garden, sculptures soon outnumbered plants in it. The same year the collection was opened to the public, becoming his first Glyptoteque. In the following years the museum was expanded on a number of occasions to meet the need for more space for his steadily growing collections. In 1885 his 'house museum' had grown to a total of 19 galleries, the first 14 of which had been designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup while Hack Kampmann had built the last four as well as conducted a redesign of the winter garden.

In spite of the many extensions, it was finally clear the existing premises were inadequate and that a new building was needed. On 8 March 1888 Carl Jacobsen donated his collection to the Danish State and the City of Copenhagen on condition that they provided a suitable building for its exhibition. Copenhagen's old fortifications had recently been abandoned and a site was chosen on a ravelin outside Holcks Bastion in the city's Western Rampart, just south of the Tivoli Gardens which had been founded much earlier in 1843. Jacobsen was displeased with the location which he found to be too far from the city centre and he had also reservations about the proximity of Tivoli which he found common. Instead he wanted a building on the emerging new city hall square, yet in the end he accepted.

It was Carl Jacobsen who chose the name for the museum, with inspiration from Ludwig I's Glyptothek in Munich, as well as Wilhelm Dahlerup as the architect who has been given the assignment. The moat was filled and the new museum was opened first on 1 May 1897. At first it was only included Jacobsen's modern collection with French and Danish works from the 18th century. In January 1899 Carl Jacobsen donated his collection of Antique art to the museum which made an expansion necessary. It was designed by Hack Kampmann while Dahlerup designed a winter garden which connected the new wing to the old building. It was inaugurated in 1906.

In 1996 the museum was once again extended, this time with an infill constructed in one of its courtyards to the design of Henning Larsen. In 2006, the building underwent a major renovation programme under the direction of Danish architects Dissing Weitling and Bonde Ljungar Arkitekter MAA. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's total collections is more than 10,000 works of art, among others 1900 comprise of the Egyptian Collection.

I shall stop here and moving on with the City Hall. I would recommend for those who are visiting Copenhagen, please, by all mean do drop by, just paid DKK110 and spend at least half a day in this museum. Do not have regret like I am feeling now. The historical facts in this entry are again from Wikipedia.