The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. This beautiful museum, founded in 1888, invites you to discover Northern Europe’s largest collection of Ancient Mediterranean art and visit the leading collection of French Impressionist paintings in Denmark.

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 includes an extensive collection of French impressionists and Post-impressionists as well as Danish Golden Age paintings.

The wonderful buildings are filled with atmosphere and every corner offers a new experience. The heart of the museum is the classic 1906 sub-tropical winter garden with tall palm trees, a fountain and a fish pool.

The museum was founded by the renowned brewing magnate Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries. who made Carlsberg beer known world wide.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.