Ordrupgaard

Have you ever dreamt of owning a collection so grand you’d need a private gallery? Ordrupgaard began as just such a dream. In 1918, Wilhelm Hansen, an insurance magnate and avid art collector, along with his wife Henny, moved into their newly built neoclassical mansion in Charlottenlund, just north of Copenhagen. Their home, Ordrupgaard, nestled within the serene Jægersborg Dyrehave forest park, was designed by the renowned architect Gotfred Tvede. The mansion, with its abundant windows and stunning winter garden, quickly proved too small to contain Hansen’s burgeoning collection. He commissioned Tvede to construct an adjoining gallery. Hansen’s intention? To share his passion for art. He generously opened this private gallery to the public once a week. The collection at Ordrupgaard focused on 19th and early 20th-century French and Danish art. It included works by prominent Impressionists such as Monet, Degas, and Renoir, as well as Danish Golden Age masters and contemporaries like Hammershøi. In 1922, Hansen faced a financial crisis due to the collapse of Landmandsbanken, forcing him to sell a significant portion of his French collection. Undeterred, he rebuilt it over the next decade, acquiring new masterpieces that remain at Ordrupgaard today. Upon Henny Hansen’s death in 1951, Ordrupgaard, along with its remarkable collection, was bequeathed to the Danish state. In 1953, it officially opened its doors as a national museum, a testament to the Hansens’ vision and generosity. The museum has since expanded, adding a striking modern extension by Zaha Hadid in 2005 and a further subterranean extension by Snøhetta in 2021. Today, Ordrupgaard offers visitors a captivating journey through art history, a place where a collector’s dream became a nation’s treasure.