French Art at Ordrupgaard

The Ordrupgaard Museum in Charlottenlund-a suburb in the north part of Copenhagen-is home to one of the most high-caliber collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French art in the world. Its founder, insurance magnate Wilhelm Hansen, wanted to promote awareness of French painting. His first acquisitions were works by Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir. As a collector, Hansen focused on Impressionism, but he also explored artistic currents occurring both before and after the Impressionist period. Hence, the works at the Ordrupgaard represent a variety of styles: Romanticism (Eugène Delacroix), the Barbizon School (Théodore Rousseau), Realism (Gustave Courbet), Modernism (Édouard Manet), and Symbolism (Paul Gauguin). This publication provides a thorough overview of this outstanding collection.