Danish museum acquires rare painting

TheCopenhagenPost    April 29th, 2015

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Glyptotek scores small Degas painting for “many millions”

The new Degas at the Glyptotek set a price record (photo: Glyptotek)

Starting from tomorrow, visitors to Copenhagen’s Glyptotek museum will be able to see the museum’s latest acquisition: Edgar Degas’s ‘Jockeys before the start’.

The museum acquired the painting thanks to large donations from the Ny Carlsberg Foundation and the Augustinus Foundation.

The Glyptotek declined to say exactly how much the painting cost beyond the price being a “large, double-digit million amount, Denmark’s highest price per square metre” ever for a painting.

The Glyptotek also said the donation that secured the painting was “one of the largest in the museum’s recent history”.

Rare motif
The museum already owns a large collection of the works of Degas, but the new painting is the first in a Danish museum depicting one of the artist’s favourite motifs: racehorses.

“Degas paintings of this type are almost unobtainable in the art market today,” Glyptotek’s director Flemming Fiborg told Jyllands-Posten.

The Glyptotek’s new Degas was painted between 1878 and 79.