Gustaf III:s antikmuseum i stockholm

Abstract

Summary The Gustaf III Museum of Antiquities in Stockholm. Sweden and the turn of the tide for classicism in Europe. When King Gustavus III left Stockholm in the autumn of 1783, it was officially announced that for reasons of health he in tended to visit the thermal baths at Pisa. In fact a major reason certainly was that he wanted to visit Rome and other places in Italy which he had already been planning during his visit to Paris in 1771. On his return he ..visited Paris for political negotiations. The visit to Italy on the whole meant the final introduction of Classical antiquity into Swedish cultural life. The 18th century witnessed a remarkable change in artistic taste in Europe which involved a shift from the heavy classicism of Rome to the lighter atmosphere of Greek art. This new trend is usually connected with the discovery in the 1730s and 1740s of the buried Vesuvian cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which brought to light an architecture and decorative art, late Hellenistic in character, not experienced earlier in Italy. The origin is probably a more complicated matter, but the discoveries may serve as a landmark. Suddenly also the Greek temples at Paestum were “discovered”. More important was the expedition to Greece in 1751–1753 of two young artists from London, James Stuart and Nicholas Revett. The first volume of their Antiquities of Athens appeared in 1762 and met with an enormous success. Grecian gusto was the catchword of the day. In the discussion of the neo‐classical style, reference is usually made only to Winckelmann. He was of course one of the leading figures in the contemporary discussion of the theory of art. On the basis of the Roman copies he also succeeded in outlining the development of Greek art, even if his mistakes are obvious. But in dealing with these problems he was under strong influence from his artist friends, Adam Friedrich Oeser and others. Besides Winckelmann we should mention Count de Caylus in Paris who very early played an important role in France. Finally, the Greek tradition had a much longer ancestry in England than in any other country. The conviction that Greeks had created an art of unsurpassing beauty, a model for all ages, resulted in a feverish competition for acquiring marble statues. Excavations brought to light numbers of broken pieces. The restorers had a busy time. The English nobility bought for their “country houses”, the German princes for their palaces. Another trend followed, apparently starting in Germany, namely to make the collections accessible to the public. The first known case is Count Wallmoden, who exhibited his treasures in Hanover. The “Landgraf of Hessen, Frederick II, in 1789 had a proper museum built for his collections (Museum Friedericianum). These trends and tendencies no doubt were well known to Gustavus III through his princely relatives and his travelling companions. A stimulating moment for the king was his meeting with the Pope Pius VI in the Museo Pio‐Celmentino already famous in European architecture. He also saw the Sala delle Muse. These experiences must have been of decisive importance for the king's own plans for a museum at Stockholm. After the king's death the government resolved, in conformity with his own wishes, that the collections should be kept together and exhibited as memorial in recognition of his support to the liberal arts and letters. The premises were arranged in the Royal Palace. The inauguration followed in 1794. This was the first museum to be established north of the Alps, owned and administrated by the state (fig. 2–3). Although much has been written about Gustavus III and his time, the literature about the king's person seems limited. Among the many existing portraits, Sergei's remarkable interpretation of his friend the king (fig. 4) reflects a highly complex person. It may be mentioned that in connection with the 200th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Letters in Stockholm, celebrated three years ago, an edition of the king's private correspondence was published by Professor Gunnar von Proschwitz. In these letters the king seems to disclose more of his feelings of loneliness, of his desire or need to meet his friends. His personality seems to appear somewhat less inaccessible.