Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum built around the private collection of Carl Jacobsen, whose father founded Carlsberg Breweries. Its main strength is sculpture, bringing together antiquities from Egypt, Greece and Rome with later works, including an important body of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture outside France. The museum also holds French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, Danish Golden Age art, and every bronze sculpture by Degas.

Carl Jacobsen opened his collection to the public in 1882, and the museum’s earliest galleries were designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup. The present building opened on 1 May 1897 after Jacobsen gave his collection to the Danish State and Copenhagen on the condition that a suitable exhibition building was provided. Look at the Winter Garden connecting the museum’s wings: its mosaic floor, tall palms, fountain and domed canopy create an indoor garden at the heart of the museum.

The building combines Dahlerup’s lavish historicist wing with a more restrained gallery wing by Hack Kampmann. More than 10,000 works belong to the collections, including an Egyptian holding of more than 1,900 pieces spanning from 3000 BCE to the 1st century CE. The name Glyptotek points to carving and storage, fitting a museum where sculpture remains the defining experience.