Visiting Copenhagen is the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in the Scandinavian world and discover its cultural and artistic heritage, as well as its history.
What can you do in Copenhagen if you’re passionate about art, history or simply curious about a new culture? Which museums are not to be missed during your stay?
This article is intended to be an objective, but not exhaustive, guide to the capital’s must-see attractions. Let us guide you!
1. SMK, the National Art Museum: one of the largest art collections in the kingdom
The SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst), located in the city centre, is not only one of the capital’s most beautiful buildings, but also one of its most famous museums, housing one of the most extensive art collections in the kingdom.
The museum is made up of two separate buildings, an old one built in 1896 in the Italian Renaissance style and a resolutely modern one completed in 1998. This new extension was built in the park behind the old building, to which it is linked by a gallery topped by a glass roof, known as the “Sculpture Alley”.
The museum’s collections span seven centuries of European art history, from the 14thcentury to the present day.
Many of the works on display come from the private collections of Denmark’s sovereigns. Until 1825, the kingdom’s works of art were part of the King’s Art Cabinet, known as “Den Kongelige Skatkammer”.
In the old building :
The European Art 1300-1800 collection features the great names in Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, Spanish and German art: Andrea Mantegna, Tiziano Vecellio, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Peter Rubens, Pieter Brueghel, Rembrandt van Rijn… The exhibition includes paintings and sculptures, miniatures, drawings and graphic works from the museum’s collection of early European art.
The Danish and Nordic Art (1750-1900) collection focuses on the most emblematic Nordic painters of this period, including Hammershøi, Eckersberg, Anker and Krøyer. The collection also includes works from the ‘Golden Age’ of Danish painting (1800-1860), a period of exceptional intellectual and artistic production in Denmark.
The French Art Collection (1900-1930): The SMK Museum has a remarkable collection of French art emanating from this period, thanks to a donation from politician Johannes Rump, a great lover of modernist art. The collection includes works by André Derain, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse of exceptional quality. The collection was subsequently supplemented by purchases of paintings and sculptures by French artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Derain and Braque, as well as artists who lived and worked in Paris, such as Modigliani.
The new building, on the other hand, links past and present through works by artists such as Edvard Weil, Herald Giersing, Emil Nolde, Per Kirkeby, Bjørn Nørgaard, Kirsten Justesen, Robert Smithson… 500 works, spread over two floors, covering everything from feminism to surrealism, via expressionism. A special feature of this collection is the presence of two works by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
Once you’ve finished your visit, why not take a stroll through the Østre Anlæg park behind the museum, or wander through the flower-filled paths of the nearby botanical garden. The choice is yours!
2. Le Musée national : un périple au fil de l’histoire du Danemark
If you’re passionate about history and want to find out more about Denmark, or if you’re fascinated by the Viking civilisation, then the National Museum is the place for you.
The museum is vast, so you can spend hours there. That said, there’s nothing to stop you opting for a more targeted tour of the premises, immersing yourself in a specific era. The Stone Age, the Viking Age, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and even the modern era are all on display at the museum.
Classical and Middle Eastern Antiquities
A visit to this collection is a long journey around the Mediterranean, punctuated by a diversion to Mesopotamia and Persia. Egyptian mummies, Assyrian bas-reliefs, Persian ceramics, Etruscan jewellery in solid gold, Roman household utensils, Greek sculptures and ceramics all feature here. A story about life and death, religion and politics in ancient times.
Danish prehistory and Viking civilisation (until 1050)
Danish prehistory covers a period up to 1050. It includes the Viking civilisation, which began in 800 AD and lasted until 1050 AD.
The Danish Middle Ages only began after the Viking period and ended with the Reformation in 1537.
So it’s in this section of the museum, rather than the Middle Ages section, that you’ll find the collections relating to the Viking period.
Among the objects on display to the public, the most precious are the Gundesrup cauldron, the Kingigtorssuaq runestone, the Skarpsalling vase, the Huldremose woman, the Trundholm sun chariot and the objects found in the tomb of Egtved’s daughter.
Middle Ages and Renaissance (1050-1660)
The collection covers the period from the end of the Viking era (1000-1050) to the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660.
Most of the objects on display come from the King’s Cabinet of Arts, created in the mid-seventeenth century, as well as from various churches and castles.
Denmark from 1660 to 2000
The exhibition is divided into three chronological sections:
- Absolute monarchy 1660-1848
- People and nation 1848-1915
- The welfare state 1915-2000
With over 5,000 objects in 37 rooms, the exhibition tells the story of 340 years of Danish history. The country has changed considerably over this period, from a European superpower controlling access to the Baltic Sea, to a small country forced to find its place as a partner in various alliances with other countries.
The King’s Art Cabinet
The National Museum’s new exhibition presents a wide selection of the most precious and curious objects from the King’s Cabinet of Arts.
Frederik III was a passionate collector of unusual objects from all over the world. They were assembled around 1650 into a cabinet of curiosities, which the king proudly displayed when visited by monarchs and heads of state. Frederik III’s Cabinet of Arts included rare antiques, stuffed animals and exotic objects such as flies and spiders made of amber steel.
Voices from the colonies
The National Museum’s exhibition on Denmark’s colonial history in the West Indies, India, West Africa and Greenland focuses not on trade, goods and resources, but on people.
Slave trader, seal hunter, nanny and insurgent, we meet them all in this new permanent exhibition, in which the National Museum looks back at the period of Danish colonialism through the voices of those whose lives it shaped.
Coin and medal collection
The National Museum’s Royal Collection of Coins and Medals comprises more than half a million objects from all over the world. It is the leading collection of medals, coins and other means of payment in the kingdom.
The Danish coin collection is the most comprehensive in the world.
Ethnographic collections
Visiting the ethnographic collection is like taking a trip around the world.
Take off on an adventure and explore the collections from North, South and Central America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Arctic, meet the Indian, Inuit, Mongolian and Maori peoples, and learn about the world’s major religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism.
A visit that is sure to interest even the youngest visitors…
The children’s museum
Children are king at the National Museum, and a whole area is reserved for them.
They can take a trip on a Viking ship, play in a 1930s courtyard or sit on the benches of a classroom similar to that of their great-grandparents, play captain on the cargo ship and lounge in the cabin, go to the market in Pakistan and shop in the bazaar, unless they prefer to cook in a medieval kitchen or prepare the castle for an enemy attack.
3. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: an oasis of art and culture in the heart of Copenhagen.
Discover the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotheque on our guided tour in English.
Inaugurated in 1888, the Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg is one of the capital’s most emblematic museums. Originally, the collections on display were limited to ancient sculptures from the civilisations of the Mediterranean Basin, Egypt, Greece and Rome, but today the museum exhibits works from all over the world.
Glyptothèque is undoubtedly one of Denmark’s most comprehensive museums. Originally based on the private collection of its founder, Carl Jacobsen, son of the creator of the famous Carlsberg brewery, it now houses over 10,000 works of art, spanning 6,000 years of art history.
The elegant building is made up of different wings with different influences: Venetian Renaissance in the Dahlerup wing, neo-classical in the Kampmann wing and minimalist in the Larsen wing, all centred around a lush winter garden beneath the dome, at the centre of which is the famous pool by Danish sculptor Kaj Nielsen, The Mother of Water.
In addition to its collections of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Babylonian and Etruscan art, the Glyptothèque houses an important collection of Danish art, particularly from the Golden Age (1800-1860), a period of exceptional intellectual and artistic production in Denmark.
It also houses collections from various other countries. French artists, among others, are well represented, particularly the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Fauvists, brought together in a separate wing of the museum known as the French Collection. Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Bonnard and many others, not forgetting Gauguin, whose wife was Danish, are all represented here. Gauguin alone is celebrated in some forty paintings.
The sculpture section on the ground floor is impressive. It includes French works by Auguste Rodin (one of the most complete collections outside France), as well as Edgard Degas and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.
Once your visit is over, the charming café in the winter garden awaits you, unless you’d rather enjoy the Tivoli gardens. You’re just one street away from one of Copenhagen’s favourite attractions.
Our guided tour
English-language tour of Glyptotek
Location
Dantes Plads 7, 1556 København, Danemark
Timetable
Monday: closed.
Tuesday to Sunday: 10am to 5pm.
Thursday: 10am to 9pm.
Prices
Adults: 125 kr (€16.80).
Accredited students under 27: 95 kr (€12.70).
Children under 18: free admission.
Website
www.glyptoteket.dk
4. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art: a collection of modern and contemporary art where art, nature and architecture are one.
Discover the Louisiana Museum on our guided tour in English.
Located some thirty kilometres north of Copenhagen, in the leafy coastal town of Humlebæk, the Louisiana Museum is not only one of Denmark’s finest museums, but also one of the most dynamic and active in Europe, both for the quality and importance of its contemporary art collections and for the outstanding exhibitions it organises each year.
Overlooking the sea, Louisiana is also renowned for its architecture. A masterpiece of Danish modernism, the museum’s discreet horizontal lines blend intimately and gracefully into the landscape, creating a constant resonance between the works and the site.
Jean Nouvel writes of this ongoing dialogue with nature:
“In Louisiana, everything is immediate and everything is home. The landscape belongs to the museum and the museum to the landscape. The trees enter the rooms, playing with the glass walls and the works of art”, Jean Nouvel
Both the museum and the park offer breathtaking views of the Øresund strait, which separates Denmark from Sweden, and the tree-lined grounds are the setting for sculptures by Moore, Calder and Serra.
Modern and contemporary art
Europe after 1945
The collections are not intended to present a chronology of modern art, but they deliberately focus on certain artists and movements, including the sculptures of Giacometti and Germaine Richier, Asger Jorn and the COBRA movement, illustrated by works by Corneille, Appel and Alechinsky, constructivism, Pop Art, minimalism and new realism, illustrated by works by Arman, Yves Klein, Fontana, Tinguely, César and Raysse.
Danish and Scandinavian artists are not forgotten, as shown by the works of Karl Isakson, William Lundstrøm, Harald Giersing, Erik Hoppe, Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Richard Mortensen, Henry Heerup, Ejler Bille, Egill Jacobsen, Per Kirkeby…
America after 1945
Several landmark works have ensured the Louisiana Collection a certain place in the representation of the American movements of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Pop Art, Minimalism and the Color Field. Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Dine and Oldenburg ensure Pop Art’s prominent presence in the museum, while the Minimalist movement is represented by Sol Lewitt, Ryman, Judd and Flavin.
The group of American Color Field painters is also well illustrated by works by Morris Louis, Reinhardt, Rothko, Noland, Kelly and Stella.
From 1990 to the present day
The 1990s are richly represented by works by Mona Hatoum, Pipilotti Rist, Sam Taylor-Wood, Sherrie Levine, Gary Hill, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley, among others.
The collections are updated through purchases and donations, so that they reflect as closely as possible the latest trends and expressions in contemporary art.
The Wessel-Bagge collection
Louisiana also houses a collection of pre-Columbian art, donated by the Wessel-Bagge Foundation in 2001.
Comprising over 400 objects, it is the personal collection of the dancer, choreographer and art collector Niels Wessel-Bagge, who died in 1990.
The park
A walk through the sculpture park is a special part of a visit to Louisiana.
From the park you can enjoy a full panoramic view over Øresund and admire the elegant architecture of the building, whose wings blend into the landscape.
The 45 works on display form an important part of the museum’s permanent collection, and each has been positioned to interact with the surrounding nature and the architecture of the building.
You’ll meet some of the great masters of modern art, including Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, as well as new names such as Dan Graham, Richard Serra, George Trakas and Alicja Kwade.
The park may be an open-air museum, but it’s also a place of calm, peace, serenity and rejuvenation. Make the most of it, especially as each season has its own charm, its own shimmering vegetation and its own special luminosity.
The Lousiana Museum and children
The Lousiana Museum also has an area entirely dedicated to children.
Children aged 4 to 16 can paint, draw, sculpt, build and explore the working methods and modes of expression of artists and architects.
There are painting, drawing and art workshops on offer every day, as well as fun ways to explore the park.
All the children’s activities are based on the museum’s current exhibitions and Louisiana’s own collections.
A special mention must go to the museum’s restaurant, whose wide terrace offers breathtaking views of the Sund Strait and the Swedish coastline.
Our guided tour
In English
Location
Gl Strandvej 13, 3050 Humlebæk, Denmark
Timetable
Monday: closed.
Tuesday to Friday: 11am to 10pm.
Saturday/Sunday: 11am to 6pm.
Prices
Adults: 145 kr
Accredited students under 27: 125 dkk (€16.80).
Children under 18: free admission.
5. The Hirschprung collection: a collection devoted to Danish art.
The Hirschsprung collection is located in the centre of Copenhagen, in the Østre Anlæg park.
The elegant neoclassical building houses the private collection of tobacco manufacturer and art collector Heinrich Hirschsprung and his wife Pauline.
The museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1911, houses one hundred years of Danish art from the 19th and early 20th centuries, from the Danish Golden Age through the Symbolists to the painters of the Skagen School.
The collection also includes furniture, various objects that belonged to the artists on display, statuettes and an impressive archive containing 25,000 letters, among other items.
From canvas to canvas, it’s a journey through Romanticism, Naturalism and Modernism, periods that have had a profound impact on Danish art.
The Danish Golden Age (1800-1860)
All the great painters of the period are represented, including C.W. Eckersberg, Christensen Købke, Constantin Hansen, Wilhem Marstrand and Martinus Rørbye, as well as some lesser-known artists.
In the museum’s beautifully decorated rooms, you can explore this period of artistic splendour and admire Eckersberg’s model studies, marked by his fascination with antiquity, or immerse yourself in the romanticism of J. Th. Lundbye’s landscapes.
Vilhelm Hammershøj
The Hirschsprung collection now houses one of the world’s largest collections of works by Vilhelm Hammershøi.
Vilhelm Hammershøi was the last great Danish painter of the nineteenth century. Although his painting is the product of modern experience, it never breaks with the basic rules of Golden Age art.
A painter of light, he is renowned for his refined interiors bathed in a diaphanous halo, for his figures, often female, alone and seen from behind, and for his mastery of muted colours.
Although he also painted cityscapes and portraits, it is his paintings of interiors that are considered his greatest achievements.
The museum’s collection includes not only paintings by the artist, but also drawings, letters, photographs, exercise books and albums that belonged to the artist, as well as his palette and some of the furniture in his house.
The Skagen school
The painters of Skagen (a small port in the north of the Jutland peninsula), including Michael and Anna Ancher and P. S. Krøyer, enjoy a special place in the history of Danish art.
The group has made a name for itself with its realistic paintings of nature, the daily lives of the local people and the hard, dangerous lives of the region’s fishermen.
The Hirschsprung collection includes a large number of paintings by this group of artists, and the museum has one of the largest collections of works by P. S. Krøyer, whose patron was Heinrich Hirschsprung and his wife.
6. The David Collection: one of the ten finest collections of classical Islamic art in the world.
Discover the David Collection on our guided tour in English.
In the heart of Copenhagen, a former mansion houses one of Europe’s finest collections of Islamic art: the David Collection.
The collection is one of the pearls of Danish patronage. L.C. David was not only an eminent lawyer and a talented investor, but also a passionate art collector. Born into the Copenhagen bourgeoisie in 1878, Louis Christian David bought this house opposite Kongens Have (“The King’s Gardens”) in 1917.
Since the collector’s death in 1960, the museum has belonged to the David Foundation, presenting three different collections under one roof, all started by David himself.
FLOORS 1 & 2
The European collection is located on the first and second floors. It features a rich selection of works of art from the 18th and 19th centuries – furniture, French and German porcelain, Danish earthenware and silverware, as well as Danish, Dutch and French paintings.
FLOOR 2
On the second floor is the Danish collection, comprising paintings, sculptures and ceramics by Danish artists from the 1880s to the 1950s. The collection includes works by Theodor Philipsen, J.F. Willumsen, L.A. Ring and Vilhelm Hammershøi. Unlike the other two collections, almost all the works in the Danish art collection were acquired by C.L. David himself.
FLOOR 3 & 4
On the third and fourth floors, the Islamic art collection is now the largest in the museum.
This superb collection, rarely visited by tourists, traces the history of Islam, which began in the 7th century along the caravan routes that brought silk, spices and myrrh to the West.
In less than a century, the religion preached by the Prophet Muhammad spread from the Atlantic to the far East, in the wake of the Arab horsemen. Over this immense territory, competing dynasties sprang up, whose princely patronages initiated and promoted precious and refined arts, reflecting the great diversity and richness of the cultures of the Islamic world.
This comprehensive collection covers the entire classical Islamic world, from Spain in the west to India in the east, spanning the period from the 7th to the 19th centuries. All the decorative arts are represented: calligraphy, miniatures, ceramics, glass, stone and stucco, wood, ivory, papier-mâché, metal, weapons, jewellery, textiles, carpets and leather.
The Islamic collection is unique in Denmark, and is one of the ten largest in the Western world.
Our guided tour
In English by an art historian guide.
Location
Stockholmsgade 20, 2100 København, Denmark
Timetable
Tuesday to Sunday: 10am to 5pm.
Wednesday: from 10am to 9pm.
Price
Free
7. The Thorvaldsen Museum: a must for lovers of classical sculpture.
If you’re passionate about classical sculpture, this is the museum for you. As well as the unique architecture of the building, you can immerse yourself in the world of the artist and admire not only his works, but also his rich personal collection of paintings, sculptures by artists of the period, antique art objects and handicrafts.
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 -1844) is one of the best-known European artists of the nineteenth century and certainly one of the most famous and influential artists Denmark has ever had. His studio was in Rome, where he lived for four decades.
Towards the end of his life, he proposed to King Frederick VI that he would donate all his works to the city of Copenhagen if he ordered the construction of a museum in his honour. The King agreed, and the museum, Denmark’s first public museum, opened its doors on 18 September 1848.
Located in the centre of Copenhagen, it is one of the most beautiful buildings in the kingdom. To visit the Slotsholmen Museum is to enter another world, a world of vivid, sensual colours. From yellow ochre to red ochre, everything is a wonder to behold: richly decorated ceilings, mosaic floors, an interior garden and, of course, the artist’s sculptures.
Architect Bindesbøll, who was fascinated by the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy, drew inspiration for the museum from the motifs and colours of the ruins of the buildings in these two ancient Roman cities.
The Thorvaldsen Museum contains not only the artist’s own sculptures, models and drawings, but also his extensive collections of paintings and sculptures by various artists, old works of art, coins and handicrafts, as well as medals, books and personal effects, including his working tools.
The museum’s inner courtyard is one of the capital’s hidden gems, a place of peace and serenity in the heart of the city. Among the ochre walls, with their palm trees and painted laurels, you can relax and perhaps dream of Italy, where Thorvaldsen spent forty years of his life. One last thing: don’t be too noisy, the artist is buried in the very heart of the place.
During the summer months, you can enjoy the courtyard. A café serves hot and cold drinks.
