Ordrupgaard

Ordrupgaard is a state-owned art museum situated near Jægersborg Dyrehave, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. The museum houses one of Northern Europe’s most considerable collections of Danish and French art from the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Ordrupgaard was founded 1916–1918 by former Hafnia managing director, titular Councillor of State Wilhelm Hansen (art collector) () (1868–1936) and his wife Henny Hansen.

Wilhelm Hansen established his collection of Danish art covering the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century during the period of 1892 to 1916. The Danish Golden Age is comprehensively represented by works by, amongst others: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Christen Købke, Johan Thomas Lundbye, P.C. Skovgaard and Wilhelm Marstrand. The main part of the collection, however, testifies to Wilhelm Hansen’s interest for contemporary art with works by artists such as: L.A. Ring, Vilhelm Hammershøi and Theodor Philipsen, not forgetting the Fynbo Painters Johannes Larsen, Fritz Syberg and Peter Hansen, Wilhelm Hansen’s childhood friend.

During World War I, Wilhelm Hansen focused his interest on French art. From 1916 to 1918 he purchased French paintings, pastels, drawings and sculptures, thus laying the foundation for an actual art museum.

It was Wilhelm Hansen’s great wish to acquaint the Danes with French 19th-century art. His first purchases were paintings by Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. Wilhelm Hansen’s main focus was on French Impressionism. In order, however, to put Impressionism into perspective, his collection also comprised the genres immediately preceding and following. Thus, Ordrupgaard is able to show Eugène Delacroix, representing Romanticism, Théodore Rousseau (the Barbizon School), Gustave Courbet (Realism), Édouard Manet (Modernism), and Paul Gauguin (Symbolism).

...
Wikipedia