Om Ljuset i hertig Karls italienska kabinett

Abstract

Summary Duke Karl (later King Karl XIII) was an active freemason and the founder of several quasi‐masonic orders. During the 1790s he had fitted out in his apartments at Stockholm Palace a small room which, judging by the painted decorations still extant, was clearly meant to be used for lodge meetings in one of these parallel orders. The room was designed by the artist Louis Masreliez, who also produced the full‐scale oudine drawings directly employed by the painter. Masreliez's sketches, drawings and full‐scale drawings, together with the building accounts, are now incorported in various archives and museum collections. Between them they convey an almost unique picture of the evolution of this late Gustavian interior design. What the archive materials do not shed light on is the very close co‐operation which must have occurred between Duke Karl and the artist, because the meanings of the painted decorations correspond to recondite structures of ideas peculiar to the various orders. We have cause to view...