Voergaard Castle

Voergaard was built in the sixteenth century on the site of a bishop's manor, a moated brick castle with a Renaissance facade of sandstone and a wing added later, and it is best known for two things. The first is a violent local reputation attached to Ingeborg Skeel, the sixteenth-century owner who completed the building and around whom a set of grim stories accumulated. The second is the collection: the last private owner, a Danish count who had lived in France, filled the castle with furniture, porcelain and paintings, including works attributed to Raphael, Rubens, Goya and Fragonard, along with furniture said to have belonged to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, shown in the rooms rather than as a gallery.

History

Voergaard's recorded history goes back to 1481. At the outbreak of the Count's Feud it belonged to Stygge Krumpen, Bishop of Børglum, and after the Reformation the crown confiscated it in 1536. In 1578 King Frederick II gave it to Karen Krabbe in exchange for another estate, and her daughter Ingeborg Skeel took it over and enlarged it, completing the work in 1588; over the next two centuries it changed hands many times and much of its land was sold. Peder Brønnum Scavenius bought it in 1872 and gathered the land again, so that by 1914 the estate covered 1,944.4 ha, one of the largest in Denmark. In 1955 it was bought by Ejnar Oberbech-Clausen, a Dane who had lived in France since 1906 and become a count through his marriage to Marie Henriette Chenu-Lafitte, owner of a large art collection inherited from her father, the surgeon Jules-Émile Péan, and her first husband; with the approval of the French state he brought 12 railway carriages of art to Denmark, restored the castle over several years, and after his death in 1963 castle and collection passed to a foundation and opened to the public (Wikipedia, Voergaard Castle).

What to look for

• A moated Renaissance castle - sandstone facade over brick, in water.
• The private art collection - paintings and furniture in the rooms.
• French royal furniture - pieces attributed to the eighteenth-century court.
• The Ingeborg Skeel stories - the castle's long-running local legend.

When to go

May to September; opening is seasonal and often afternoons only. Two to three hours. Guided tours are the usual way through the rooms. Weekends are busier.

Before you go

Attributions in the collection are the owner's and are not all independently established, which the visit does not dwell on. Opening hours are short and seasonal. Tours may be in Danish only. Photography inside is restricted.

Nearby

Saeby is north-east on the coast; Aalborg lies south.

Key facts