Three NT th-Century Paintings from the Collection of Gustaf Adolf Sparre Carina Fryklund Curator, Old Master Drawings and Paintings Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Picture Editor Every effort has been made by the publisher to is published with generous support from the Rikard Nordström credit organizations and individuals with regard Friends of the Nationalmuseum. to the supply of photographs. Please notify the Photo Credits publisher regarding corrections. The Nationalmuseum collaborates with © Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig Svenska Dagbladet, Fältman & Malmén (p. NQ ) Graphic Design and Grand Hôtel Stockholm. © The Gothenburg Museum of Art/Hossein BIGG Sehatlou (p. NU ) Items in the Acquisitions section are listed © Malmö Art Museum/Andreas Rasmusson Layout alphabetically by artists’ names, except in the case (p. OO ) Agneta Bervokk of applied arts items, which are listed in order of © Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York (p. OV ) their inventory numbers. Measurements are in © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Translation and Language Editing centimetres – Height H, Breadth B, Depth D, Paris/Hervé Lewandowski (p. PMF Gabriella Berggren and Martin Naylor. Length L, Width W, and Diameter Diam. © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles – except for those of drawings and prints, which (Fig. QI p. PN ) Publications are given in millimetres. © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Ingrid Lindell (Publications Manager), Paris/René-Gabriel Ojéda (Fig. RI p. PN ) Janna Herder (Editor). Cover Illustration © Guilhem Scherf (p. PO ) Alexander Roslin ( NTNU ÓNTVP ), The Artist and his © Bridgeman/Institute of Arts, Detroit (p. PP ) Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is published Wife Marie Suzanne Giroust Portraying Henrik © Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris/Jean Tholance annually and contains articles on the history Wilhelm Peill, NTST . Oil on canvas, NPN ñ VUKR cm. (p. PQ ) and theory of art relating to the collections of Donated by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum, © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Paris the Nationalmuseum. Sophia Giesecke Fund, Axel Hirsch Fund (p. PR ) and Mr Stefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson. © Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Nationalmuseum Nationalmuseum, åã TNQNK Rome/Mauro Coen (Figs, SI NM and NO , Box NSNTS pp. NNQ ÓNNS ) ëÉ ÓNMP OQ Stockholm, Sweden Publisher © Mikael Traung (Fig. T, p. NNQ ) www.nationalmuseum.se Magdalena Gram © Stockholm City Museum (p. NOP ) © Nationalmuseum and the authors http://www.stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?n Editor id=319 ISSN OMMNJVOPU Janna Herder © Stockholm City Museum/Lennart af Petersens (p. NOQ ) Editorial Committee © http://www.genealogi.se/component/ Mikael Ahlund, Magdalena Gram, Janna Herder, mtree/soedermanland/eskilstuna/ Helena Kåberg and Magnus Olausson. a_zetherstroem_/22850?Itemid=604 (p. NOR ) © http://www.genealogi.se/component/ Photographs mtree/bohuslaen/marstrand/robert-dahlloefs- Natinalmuseum Photographic Studio/Linn atelier/22851?Itemid=604 (p. NOT ) Ahlgren, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson, Cecilia Heisser, Bodil Karlsson, Per-Åke Persson, Sofia Persson and Hans Thorwid. ~ÅèìáëáíáçåëLíÜêÉÉ NTíÜJÅÉåíìêó é~áåíáåÖë Three NT th-Century Paintings from the Collection of Gustaf Adolf Sparre Carina Fryklund Curator, Old Master Drawings and Paintings qÜÉ k~íáçå~äãìëÉìã has acquired three important Flemish and Dutch cabi - net pictures from the former collection of Count Gustaf Adolf Sparre ( NTQSÓNTVQ ): two genre scenes in a smaller format by David Teniers the Younger (Fig. N) and Jacob Toorenvliet (Fig. O), and a landscape by Gijsbrecht Leytens (Fig. P). All three paintings are in their collector’s distinctive carved and gilded wood frames in Neoclassi - cal Gustavian style, in two standard designs. Gustaf Adolf Sparre af Söfdeborg (Fig. R) was heir to one of Sweden’s wealthiest 1 merchant families. Born on S January NTQS , he was the son of Rutger Axel Sparre, a director of the Swedish East India Com - pany. His mother, Sara Christina Sahlgren, was from a prominent and cultured Gothenburg family of merchants. Their marriage in NTQM brought an influx of wealth to the Sparre dynasty. Following the fire which in winter NTQS , a week after Gustaf Adolf’s birth, destroyed the original Sahlgren house in Gothenburg, Sara’s mother Birgitta Sahlgren commissioned Bengt Wilhelm Carlberg ( NSVSÓNTTU ), the city’s leading architect, to rebuild on the same site, facing Stora Hamngatan and its canal, in NTRP . This impressive Neoclassical palace, known as the Sahlgren-Sparre Palace, which was to house Gustaf Adolf Sparre’s collection, still stands today. Gustaf Adolf’s parents died when he was still young. He was educated at the uni - Fig. N David Teniers the Younger ( NSNMÓNSVM ), Tavern Interior with Peasant Lighting his Pipe, NSQM s. versities of Lund and Uppsala, but the Oil on oak, OPKV ñ NV cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNORK strongest influence on his further educa - tion was his highly cultivated grandmother, NN Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP ~ÅèìáëáíáçåëLíÜêÉÉ NTíÜJÅÉåíìêó é~áåíáåÖë the very best in Sweden next to the Royal Collection. By New Year NTTO , when Sparre re - turned to Gothenburg from his European travels, he was the owner, together with his cousin Jacob Sahlgren, of the Sahlgren- Sparre Palace. He decided to modernise the building, redecorating and refurnish - ing in fashionable Gustavian style a suite of rooms, in particular two drawing rooms on the first floor that were to house his picture collection. The style of the decoration re - flected the recent remodelling of the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and it seems likely that Sparre employed the same architect and decorators. Around NTTR Sparre com - missioned ornamental frames for the paintings, to match the rest of the gallery’s decor. These were probably made by the same joiners, including the sculptor Gustaf Johan Fast, who created the apartment’s mirror frames and panelling. The Swedish art historian Ingmar Hasselgren noted that Fast, who had executed some of the deco - rative work in the Royal Palace, was respon - sible for four mirrors in Sparre’s apart - ment, and suggested that he may also have been responsible for the boiseries in the re - decorated rooms in the Sparre-Sahlgren Palace. Since Fast usually worked under the court architect Jean Eric Rehn, whose work resembles the renovations in the Fig. O Jacob Toorenvliet ( NSQMÓNTNV ), Man Holding a Jug (The Sense of Taste), c. NSTV . Oil on copper, Sparre apartment, Hasselgren also suggest - NSKQ ñ NPKQ cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNOSK ed that Rehn may have been Sparre’s ar - chitect. 2 As an art collector, Sparre was particu - Birgitta Sahlgren, who encouraged her were drawn, and French culture and taste larly keen on Dutch and Flemish genre grandson’s interest in the arts. From the in the arts predominated, including the painting, from simple depictions of drink - middle of the NU th century onwards, gen - collecting of paintings, drawings and sculp - ing and smoking peasants to the richly de - erations of wealthy young Swedes were en - ture. This was the age of Count Carl Gustaf tailed fijnschilderij of the Leiden artists. He couraged to make the Grand Tour of con - Tessin (see article on p. NMV ), whose mag - also assembled a collection of Old Master tinental Europe. Birgitta Sahlgren thus en - nificent collection constitutes the core of drawings, eventually inherited by his son-in- couraged her grandson to travel and pro - the French Rococo holdings in the Na - law Jacob Gustaf De la Gardie, parts of vided the necessary funding. Gustaf Adolf tionalmuseum, which are among the great - which are today housed in the Nationalmu - 3 was abroad continuously from NTSU until est and best preserved outside France. seum. The majority of Sparre’s picture col - the end of NTTN . Some of his diaries and Tessin also assembled an important collec - lection comprised small-scale Flemish and his correspondence with his grandmother tion of Old Master drawings. Sparre’s large Dutch cabinet pictures from the NT th cen - have survived, and provide an insight into collection was similarly built up primarily tury. Although Sparre did acquire copies of his growing interest in the arts, especially through extensive purchases in the some large-scale religious paintings, such as painting, and his urge to collect. Paris was Netherlands and in Paris during the later Peter Paul Rubens’ Descent from the Cross and a magnet to which Swedish Grand Tourists NU th century, and was considered one of Anthony van Dyck’s grisaille ricordo of his Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP NO ~ÅèìáëáíáçåëLíÜêÉÉ NTíÜJÅÉåíìêó é~áåíáåÖë Fig. P Gijsbrecht Leytens ( NRUSÓNSQOLRT ), Wooded Mountain Landscape with Waterfall and Travellers, first half of NT th century. Oil on oak, SUKQ ñ NMNKR cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNOQK Crucifixion , he purchased very few large Antwerp painter David Teniers the landscapist Gijsbrecht Leytens ( NRUSÓÅK 4 works. Indeed, few pictures of any dimen - Younger ( NSNMÓNSVM ) – the artist repre - NSQOLRS ), who is better known for his at - sions greater than one metre entered the sented by the largest number of works in mospheric winter scenes. With its charac - Sparre collection, one exception being Jan Sparre’s collection – and Man Holding a Jug teristic features – an imposing north Euro - Lievens’ magnificent The Apostle Paul at his (Taste) (Fig. O) from around NSTV , by the pean mountain and forest landscape com - Writing Desk, which the Nationalmuseum Leiden fijnschilder Jacob Toorenvliet bined with fanciful Italianate buildings, pas - 5 was fortunately able to acquire in OMNO . (NSQMÓNTNV ), are prime examples of the toral idylls and exotically dressed groups of Sparre’s tastes were entirely in line with pre - tastes of the age. Another important group travellers – the Stockholm picture is closely vailing trends among NU th-century connois - in the Sparre collection consisted of land - comparable to the artist’s late Mountain seurs in the Netherlands and Paris where, scapes and pastoral scenes.