My first stop on the Copenhagen museum trail was a visit to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Apparently glyptotek means to carve/ a store place/and is also a sculpture collection, and the ancient Mediterranean and 18th/19th century French and Danish sculptures which make up part of the collection here were donated to the city in 1888, having been amassed by the Carlsberg brewing magnate and philanthropist Carl Jacobsen. The original building was designed by architects Vilhelm Dahlerup and Hack Kampmann and is a wonderfully decorative affair. The elements of the pretty interior design actually threaten to outshine some of the exhibits. The museum was subsequently enlarged further by Henning Larsen in 1996 and Danish architects Dissing + Weitling in 2006.
Sculptures and metal decorative elements together with patterned terracotta tiles adorn the Venetian Renaissance inspired facade.
The centrepiece of the original building is the glass-domed Winter Garden - an airy palm house which houses a collection of large tropical plants and Kai Nielson's starkly white marble sculpture - Water Mother with Children, 1921, set in a fountain replete with Koi carp. The palms here have grown to a height of 20 metres and were actually grown in founder Carl Jacobsen's childhood home making them about 140 years old.
In the upstairs galleries are lots of marble portrait busts and a collection of artworks by artists from the Golden Age of Danish painting (1815-50).
Elisabeth Jerichau-Bauman (1819-1881) - Mor Danmark/Mother Denmark, 1851
Elisabeth Jerichau-Bauman (1819-1881) - Havfruen/Mermaid, 1873
Antonio Canova - The Three Graces
Christen Købke - Autumn Landscape Fredericksborg Castle in The Middle Distance,
C.W. Eckersberg (1783-1853) - Naked Woman Putting On Her Slippers, 1843
It was heartening to come across this room of Degas' sculptures which were full of movement. The glyptotek is one of a few museums to hold the complete collection of Degas' sculptures. That was about as good as it got upstairs as the modern galleries of French painting along with other large swathes of the museum were closed, and no explanation was given as to why. Sadly visitors that day missed out out on pieces by Gauguin, Manet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec as well as the Egyptian mummies held by the Glyptotek.
It was then back downstairs to visit the African/Egyptian gallery which held some beautiful sculptures. I liked the way in which the mosaic floor designs reflected the content of the gallery here with stylised Lotus and Palm leaves.
King Amenemhat III
King Amenophis II
This spacious Central Hall was flooded with natural light, highlighting the Greco-Roman sculptures.
As I mentioned earlier, just as impressive as the artworks are the patterned floor mosaics which consisted of some fabulous designs and also had little stories to tell. The thistle patterns (below) from the Kampmann building are a tribute to the birthplace of Carl Jacobsen's British wife Ottilia, and the stylised barley plant design (last picture), are an acknowledgement of the main ingredient which went into the making of Carlsberg lager - the popularity of which was the very thing that made the building of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek possible.
The plasterwork designs on the ceilings and the coloured glass designs of the skylights are also wonderful design features of the museum. It's a pity that the modern extension housing the French painting galleries were closed, as gallery after gallery of classical sculpture - beautifully carved as they were - became so repetitive that it all began to seem very samey. The extravagantly decorative interior of the building is a real delight and treasure though.
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
Dantes Plads 7
1556 København
Denmark
