Denmark-Frederiksborg Castle

Nestled between majestic beech forests, at the northern end of the s-train line from Copenhagen, Hillerød is the main regional centre and transport hub of North Zealand.  For visitors, this small city of some 30.000 inhabitants is above all known for its large impressive renaissance castle.

Frederiksborg Palace or Frederiksborg Castle  is a palace in Hillerod, Denmark. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV and is now a museum of national history.
Frederik II's son, Christian IV was born at Frederiksborg Castle in 1577 and was deeply attached to it. In 1599 he instigated extensive restoration work in the course of which the old main buildings were pulled down and replaced by a magnificent new Renaissance Castle. The Castellan's House and the Chancellery were built on the outer courtyard during the years around 1613. Throughout the seventeenth century, Frederiksborg Castle was often used as a royal residence, but during the succeeding centuries the royal family seldom used it. However, the Castle was of great ceremonial importance. With the introduction of absolutism, Danish kings were no longer crowned but instead anointed in the Chapel at Frederiksborg Castle.

                                             The Chapel at the castle

The Museum of National History
In the 1850s Frederik VII often used Frederiksborg Castle as a royal residence. The old castle had not been properly maintained, and fire broke out during the night of 16/17 December 1859. It started in one of the newly installed fireplaces in the third floor and spread rapidly. The greater part of the interior of the Castle was destroyed. The Privy Passage and the Audience House escaped the flames. Several of thebig ceiling vaults in the Chapel collapsed, but the rest of the building was saved. The fire was a disaster. Frederiksborg Castle was regarded at the time as a national monument, and during the days that followed a spontaneous, nation-wide collection was initiated with the aim of financing the restoration of the Castle. The founder of the Carlsberg Breweries, J. C. Jacobsen, was among the first contributors and proved to be of great importance to the castle's future use. In 1877 he proposed that a museum of national history be established at Frederiksborg Castle along the lines of those at Versailles in France and Gripsholm in Sweden. His aim was to stimulate the self-confidence and national loyalty of the Danes during the period after the loss of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in 1864. On 5 April 1878 Christian IX issued a royal decree whereby the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle became and independent department of the Carlsberg Foundation.

Collection
The Museum of National History shows portraits, history paintings, art manufacture and graphic prints.
Their collection of portraits is the largest in Denmark and consists of portrait paintings, busts, reliefs and portrait photography. Several renowned works are found among our history paintings, which depict scenes from Danish history. The museum has a collection of art manufacture ranging from the 1500's until the present. In addition there is a large collection of graphic prints consisting of both primitive popular prints and exquisite copperplates.

Danish history through 500 years
Several rooms at The Museum of National History give a vivid impression of past interiors. Danish history is told through portraits, history paintings, furniture and art manufacture. Thus the museum shows different epochs and changes in style. Touring the museum you encounter people and events that have helped shape Danish history from the Middle Ages until the 21st century.

The Castle gardens
The Mint Gate and the Mint Bridge lead from the Castle to the Baroque Garden. Christian IV had built a little Italian villa which he called "Sparepenge" (Savings) opposite the King's Wing, but it was pulled down at the beginning of the 1720s to make room for Frederik IV's Baroque Garden. The architect J. C. Krieger laid out the symmetrical garden, which follows the Castle's main axis with a long perspective extending into the landscape. The garden was altered during the following centuries, but in the 1990s it was restored, complete with cascades and parterre flower-beds. The Baroque garden is however, not the only garden in the grounds. To the left of the Baroque Garden is a romantic English-inspired garden, which is also home to the charming Bath House.

                                   Hillerød, Denmark: Stunning Frederiksborg Castle

For more photographs of Fredriksborg click on link below

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Copenhagen -Christiansborg Palace

Christiansborg Palace has a more than 800 year-long history as the state’s centre of power, and today the palace includes several institutions of central importance. The Folketing has at its disposal most of the rooms in the palace, but the Prime Minister, the High Court, and the Royal Reception Rooms are also located here.

The existing Christiansborg Palace is the last in a long row of buildings that have been on Slotsholmen in Copenhagen. Christian VI had the medieval Copenhagen Castle demolished immediately after his accession to the throne, and between 1735 and 1745, he built the first Christiansborg Palace, which, however, burned in 1794. The second Christiansborg Palace was completed in 1828 during the reign of Frederik VI, but it also burned in 1884. The third Christiansborg Palace was built between 1907 and 1928. Frederik VIII laid the cornerstone, and Christian X inaugurated the palace.

The Royal Reception Rooms at Christiansborg Palace are located on the first floor, the so-called bel étage, in the northern part of the main wing and in the wing along Prins Jorgen’s Gaard. The rooms are used by HM The Queen for the New Year Levee, evening parties, gala banquets and ambassadorial audiences. The Royal Reception Rooms were inaugurated with a grand party on 12 January 1928, and that date is considered as the official inauguration of the palace.

The Royal Reception Rooms are richly decorated, both with artworks salvaged from the two previous palaces and with decorations made by some of the best artists of that day, as well as with a fine contemporary addition in the form of Bjorn Norgaard’s tapestries made for HM The Queen.

Visitors come to the Royal Reception Rooms along the King's Staircase, at the end of which, to the right, they reach the Tower Room. Here one sees a series of tapestries with motifs from Danish folk ballads, designed by Joakim Skovgaard. Across from this lies the oval Throne Room with the two thrones.


The Throne Room is decorated with a large ceiling painting by Kræsten Iversen depicting Dannebrog, which according to legend fell from the sky in Estonia in 1219. Christian IX’s Apartment contains six marble busts of, respectively, Christian IX and Queen Louise, Frederik VIII and Queen Lovisa, and Christian X and Queen Alexandrine. 

The Fredensborg Room is dominated by Laurits Tuxen’s large painting of Christian IX and Queen Louise surrounded by their family in the Garden Room at Fredensborg Palace. In Frederik VI’s Apartment hang four large Eckersberg paintings salvaged from the second Christiansborg Palace. The Velvet Apartment was used as the throne room until 1933, hence the high ceiling and the fine marble portals. In the Corner Apartment hang Laurits Tuxen’s large painting of “The Four Generations”, showing Christian IX and the princes Frederik VIII),                                                                                     Christian (X) and Frederik (IX).

The Great Hall is the largest of the Reception Rooms, and it is 40 metres long and 10 metres high with a gallery running along its sides. Retracted into the ceiling are three large Kræsten Iversen paintings that symbolise the legislative, the executive and the judiciary powers united in the palace. The Hall was originally decorated with Christian V’s tapestries from Rosenborg Castle, but these tapestries were returned to Rosenborg when the Danish business community’s gift for Queen Margrethe’s 50th birthday in 1990, the Danish sculptor Bjorn Norgaard’s 17 tapestries with motifs selected from 1000 years of Danish history, were mounted in the Hall in connection with the Queen’s 60th birthday on 16 April 2000.

The Royal Banquet Hall has three retracted mural paintings depicting Christian VI, Frederik VI and Christian VIII. The Abildgaard Room takes its name from the three large paintings from Nicolai Abildgaard’s series of royal paintings salvaged from the first Christiansborg: Christian I, Christian III and Frederik II. The Alexander Room is decorated with Bertel Thorvaldsen’s marble frieze, “The Entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon”, which was originally made for the second Christiansborg Palace.

View more  photographs of Christiansborg palace at

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