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The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek) is an art museum located in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark.



The museum was founded out of the collection of Carl Jacobsen, son of Jacob Christian Jacobsen, founder of Carlsberg beer, bringing together one of the largest private collections of art of his time, and which today has the largest collection of ancient art in northern Europe, receiving about 350 thousand visitors a year.



The museum's collection includes Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiques as well as romantic sculptures and impressionist and post-impressionist paintings.



Carl's father, Jacob Jacobsen, had enriched himself with his brewery, and the family's philanthropic vocation began with his sponsorship of the reconstruction of Frederiksborg Castle, destroyed by fire in 1859. However, it was not only cultural reasons that led him to do so, but also a disagreement with his only son, Carl, who was excluded from most of his father's inheritance with the creation of the Carlsberg Foundation in 1876, making her the primary recipient of his wealth.

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Carl nevertheless achieved his economic independence by founding his own brewery in 1882, Ny Carlsberg, rivaling his father in business and philanthropy. His interest in art was concentrated on French and Danish contemporaries, as well as on antiques from the Mediterranean region. He and his wife Ottilia opened their collection to the public in 1882 in their own home, and as the acquisitions did not cease the house soon became shy for so many pieces. Thus, they soon donated it in two lots (1888, French and Danish art, and 1899, antiques) to the Danish State, which in return was responsible for building a suitable museum to house the vast collection, giving rise to the current Gliptoteca.



The first batch of works was installed in a building built by Vilhelm Dahlerup, opened in 1897. The next donation, from 1899, could not be received in the same building, requiring the construction of another headquarters, which was designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup and Hack Kampmann. In the meantime, Carl's expensive art acquisitions nearly brought his brewery to ruin. An agreement signed with his father's foundation in 1902 made it possible to obtain a loan and create his own foundation, the Ny Carlsberg Foundation, and also made it possible to complete the construction of the new building, opened in 1906.



Carl's son Helge (1882-1946) continued the family tradition and became director of the Gliptoteca until his death, and his interest in the work of impressionists and post-impressionists led to an expansion of the collection in this regard when he donated his personal collection to the Glyptoteca, shifting the emphasis from the sculpture museum to painting and discarding many copies of classic sculptural works.



Throughout the twentieth century the museum received minor enlargements, but in 1996 an entirely new wing was built to receive French paintings. The project was by Henning Larsen. New reforms have been underway since 2006.



The original proposal for the creation of the Gliptoteca was for an integration between art and its exhibition environment. Carl Jacobsen wanted a building "with its own beauty, to which people were irresistibly drawn". Currently, the Gliptoteca collection is distributed in four buildings:



The Dahlerup building, the first to be erected, shows an eclectic design of a symmetrical floor plan surrounding a central lobby. Its façade was inspired by Venetian Renaissance models, with a large portico in the form of a triumphal arch, and decorative statuary. Its lobby is monumental, with a vaulted ceiling with three naves and large support columns, and the decoration uses luxurious materials such as marbles and granites of various colors. On one side of the lobby there is a gallery for Danish sculpture and on the other one for French sculpture, each with a characteristic decoration, with frescoes, friezes inspired by Norse mythology and raised allegories reminiscent of classic myths.



The Kampmann building was built to receive the collection of antiques. His style, however, is classicist and austere, suited to the type of works he should have, and according to the desire for harmony between the work and the environment expressed by the founder. Its architect Hack Kampmann established a symmetrical plan, which continued the Dahlerup building through the courtyard, completing its closure and covering the gap with a glass dome, giving rise to the museum's third space, the Winter Garden, which is the focal point of the entire complex and where all the main galleries converge.



The Larsen building, the modern construction, had its origin due to problems of conservation of the section of French paintings, previously exposed in the Dahlerup building, where they suffered with the sunstroke and atmospheric pollution, since the air conditioning of the historic building was not adequate and nor could it, due to its structure, be improved. This building was designed as a building within a building, occupying a narrow corridor between the two oldest buildings.



The renovations undertaken from 2006 to here reorganized several spaces with new museographies and facilitated the access of disabled people, in addition to restoring facades through abrasion with glass dust, a technique suitable for the material of buildings - basically brick, granite and limestone - and which was successfully employed before at the Louvre.

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