Two collectors from the same era with a common passion: the collections of French sculpture assembled by Calouste Gulbenkian and Carl Jacobsen are shown together for the first time in a touring exhibition that opens at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, before travelling to the Copenhagen Glyptotek.

Although Calouste Gulbenkian’s sculpture collection is smaller, the works that the collector acquired over his lifetime reveal surprising connections with the Danish works. The convergences between the two collections are evident not only in the sculptors represented, but also in the themes and in the sculptures themselves – on more than one occasion, we find different versions of the same work with variations of scale or material.

These interesting coincidences form the basis of this innovative exhibition, which arranges a selection of thirty timeless works into groups according to the poses of the figures. Some of the artists who helped define the nineteenth century in France, such as Rodin, Carpeaux and Dalou, are central figures in the five key themes that make up the different sections of this exhibition.