Masterpieces from Sweden

Nationalmuseum houses a major collection of French 18thcentury paintings. The pictorial qualities of the Rococo are to some extent reminiscent in this portrait by Anne Vallayer-Coster. The painting is considered one of the artist’s masterpieces. The genre…

Sofie Ribbing’s Drawing Boys (1864) is a highlight not only in the artist’s production, but also in the Swedish art of the mid-1800s. The painting represents a form of everyday realism with genre motifs which Swedish artists developed in Düsseldorf and to…

Hanna Pauli’s portrait of her artist friend Venny Soldan-Brofeldt, painted in their common studio in Montparnasse in Paris 1886–1887, has in recent decades become a classic of Swedish art history. Pauli has depicted the model sitting on the floor leaning …

An equestrian has mounted a rearing horse. The cubistically fragmented image consists of dynamic triangles and dark, muted colours and only slowly does the image of horse and rider surface. There is hardly any rendering of a landscape except for the starr…

The author August Strindberg was also an artist. His paintings are original and in many ways they are considered to have been ahead of their time. The motifs are often dramatic, with raging seas and skies. Visionary rather than authentic – like here, wher…

“The Kitchen Maid” is considered by many to be one of Rembrandt’s most representative works. The warm shades of red, brown and yellow, and the vivid depiction of the girl, make this one of his true masterpieces. One might assume that Rembrandt had a speci…

Carl Larsson is considered one of the most important and influential artists in Swedish art history. Stylistically his imagery is connected with different international movements, while his choice of motifs reflected the ideals of the Swedish lifestyle. T…

A young man lies surrounded by mourning friends, with a look of suffering on his face. The mirror in his hand enhances the impression that he remains self-centred up to his last moment. The Dying Dandy is one of Dardel's most famous paintings. Althoug…

First and foremost Johan Tobias Sergel was a sculptor. But he was also a masterly draughtsman. Passionate Lovers expresses Sergel’s exceptional capability to mediate the nerve of a certain situation or mood. It is indeed a piece of Swedish art history and…

The three Holy Kings ride towards Mary and the infant Jesus, sitting on the throne placed to the left. Beside the throne, we see Joseph with the lit candle, and to the right the Star of Bethlehem. The wall hangings of southern Sweden, depict highly expres…

Alexander Roslin had an outstanding international career as a portrait painter and is one of the most successful Swedish born artists ever. Roslin came to Paris in a time of transition between rococo and neo-classicism, and manoeuvred skilfully between th…

John Bauer is probably the most successful illustrator in Sweden of all times and known for his illustrations for the fairy tales collection "Among Gnomes and Trolls", annually published at Christmas since 1907. Although he based his watercolors…

The German-born painter Albrekht Ymmenhusen, known as Albertus Pictor, cuts a distinct figure in Swedish medieval art by a unique combination of both quality and quantity. He is the most active workshop leader in the field of Swedish mural painting of the…