History

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, or the Glyptotek, is an international museum with a large permanent art collection from antiquity to the present day.

Marble statues and masterpieces, mummies and Mediterranean moods. With its unique blend of art and magnificent architecture, the Glyptotek 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.

The Glyptotek 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.

The name ‘Glyptotek’ comes from the Greek glyptos, meaning carving or sculpture, and theke for the place where something is collected or displayed.

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, he 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 the Glyptotek 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.

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. He was an enthusiastic admirer of contemporary French artists, whose works he saw at the annual exhibitions in Paris.

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.

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.

In his youth 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. He managed to buy some fine paintings, though none by the very greatest masters – such as Raphael and Michelangelo.

Jacobsen also acquired a large number of drawings by Danish and foreign artists and he created a significant collection of medals and plaquettes.

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 Jacobsen became its director.

Carl Jacobsen’s conviction that art could beautify, touch and enrich the lives of everyone is till the rule at the Glyptotek.

Brewing magnate 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 Jacobsen also set great store by works which made considerable impact, most of all masterpieces with a certain monumentality.

At the same time, the Glyptotek 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.

For his entire life 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 Jacobsen paid for the famous sculpture The Little Mermaid by Edvard Eriksen, which was set up at Langelinie.