Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Volume 28:1

The Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm is a journal devoted to art history. It is published in English twice a year with a content that ranges from older master paintings to contemporary design. This, the first part of volume 28, focuses primarily on acquisitions in 2021.

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Articles

Foreword
Magnus Olausson

Donation of 18th-Century Swedish Silver Items
Micael Ernstell
In 2021, the Nationalmuseum received another important donation of silver items from Märta Christina and Magnus Vahlquist, given through the Friends of the Nationalmuseum. A gift that included three unique silver items from the 18th century: A chocolate pot and a toiletry box from Petter Henning’s (1658–1713) workshop and a confectionary bowl from 1769 by Lars Petter Hackzell (1739–1771).

The Schoolmaster – Noël Hallé’s Tender Look at Education in the Mid-18th Century
François Bouquet
Ideas about education and its possible development were some of the main characteristics and highlights of the French Enlightenment, ideas that have influence even today. Noël Hallé (1711–1781) belonged to a dynasty of French artists who in the 18th century became successful by closely following the development of taste and style. The Schoolmaster (1751) addresses contemporary educational issues and is at the same time a sensitive description of childhood.

Pierre Jacques Volaire’s View of Solfatara
Daniel Prytz
The French artist Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729–1799) took inspiration from, among others, Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789) and, in addition to coastal landscapes, primarily specialized in dramatic views of Vesuvius. Volaire settled in Naples and his works became very popular with the Grand Tour travelers. View of Solfatara (1770s) belongs to a smaller group of paintings with motifs from this active volcanic crater, in Pozzuoli, near Naples.

Louis Masreliez’ Allegory of War – Between History Painting and Interior Art in a Sequence of Interrelated Propaganda
Daniel Prytz
Allegory of War (c. 1790) is one of very few oil paintings that Louis Masreliez (1748–1810) completed. The work was intended as an overdoor in Gustav III's bedchamber at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. It would thus be part of a wider propagandistic context with the aim of glorifying the king, especially his exploits in connection with the Swedish-Russian war of 1788–90. The painting relates directly to several drawings and an oil sketch, previously in the Nationalmuseum’s collections.

Still Life with Flower Arrangement and Fruit Basket by Antoine Berjon
Carl-Johan Olsson
Antoine Berjon specialized in still lifes but had also mastered pastels and miniature painting. The Museum’s recently acquired painting Still Life with Flower Arrangement and Fruit Basket is among the largest, format-wise, and the most ambitiously executed in his relatively small production.

Old Italian Woman with Distaff by Jean-Victor Schnetz
Magnus Olausson
Jean-Victor Schnetz (1787–1870) arrived in Rome in 1816 where he, a few years later, met Maria Grazia Boni from Sonnino. Both Maria Grazia and her mother would soon feature in paintings by the artist and his Academy colleagues. The Nationalmuseum’s acquisition Old Italian Woman with Distaff is one example where Schnetz used the older woman as a model. The painting shows her in the braided corset and with the distinctive headpiece that was part of the model’s genuine folk costume. She also appears as a model in compositions by other artists, such as Léon Cogniet, François-Joseph Navez, Léopold Robert and possibly Théodore Géricault.

Allegory of Sunday – A Painting by Ditlev Conrad Blunck
Karin Bechmann Søndergaard
For his coronation on 28 June 1840, King Christian VIII of Denmark was given an album to which a number of Danish Golden Age artists had contributed. Among these contributions was a watercolour, Søndagen – en allegori, donated by Ditlev Blunck. He later made a larger oil painting, Allegory of Sunday which he gave to his friend Albert Theodor Karchow in the 1840s and it was in the possession of the Karchow family until it was purchased by the Nationalmuseum, the Sophia Giesecke Fund, in 2021.

19th-Century Finnish Landscape Painting. From Romantic Views to Colour Experiments
Susanna Pettersson
The Nationalmuseum has recently acquired three oil paintings of Finnish landscapes: Magnus von Wright’s (1805–1868) Landscape in Lielax, Emma Gyldén’s (1835–1874) Landscape near Björneborg and Maria Wiiks (1853–1928), Landscape by a Lake. These three acquisitions feature different ways of approaching the landscape in 19th-century Finnish painting in a shift from romantic views to some of the first free colour experiments.

Mary Cassatt’s Portrait of her Sister Lydia. A Free Study for The Cup of Tea
Magnus Olausson
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) created her very own form of expression, characterised by unusually rough representation for its time, and for liberal experimentation that tends towards abstractionism. She would become one of three significant women Impressionists, known as les trois grandes dames, in a group otherwise dominated by men. Cassatt’s independent approach is also visible in her experimentation with pastel painting, where she worked with various blending techniques which in turn, affected her oil painting. The influences of pastel techniques can be seen particularly clearly in Portrait of the Artist’s Sister Lydia. Study for The Cup of Tea, recently acquired by the Nationalmuseum. It is a figure study from c. 1879–80, depicting Cassatt’s sister Lydia, apparently unaware that she is being observed, drinking tea. The extension of Cassatt’s sketched study of her sister Lydia can be seen in her composition The Cup of Tea (now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Julia Beck’s Painting Autumn Day and 19th-Century Transnational Naturalism
Carina Rech
The Swedish artist Julia Beck (1853–1935) was for many years almost forgotten, but she has made a comeback in the last decade and is today considered one of the leading landscape painters of the late 19th century. In 2021, the Nationalmuseum was able to acquire a central work by the artist, which was painted during her stay in Grez-sur-Loing in France. Beck's painting Autumn Day is a striking example of the transnational cross-fertilization among Swedish, French and Anglo-Saxon artists in the artists’ colony in Grez.

Supplice de Loke – A Sculpture by Ida Matton
Barbro Norbelie
In connection with the exhibition on women sculptors that took place in 2022, the Nationalmuseum received Ida Matton's (1863–1940) plaster model of Supplice de Loke, 1897, as a gift from the sculptor's surviving relatives. The marble version, which was shown at the Salon in Paris in 1909, had been offered to the Nationalmuseum a hundred years ago, but the museum rejected it, and the sculpture ended up outside Stockholm City Hall instead. In the article, Barbro Norbelie (1942–2023) examines the events surrounding the sculpture's creation, reception, and aftermath.

Isabelle Mann Clow’s Dining Room Furnishings and Swedish Design in 1920s USA
Helena Kåberg
After visiting Svenskt Tenn’s showroom in Stockholm in 1928, Isabelle Mann Clow commissioned architect Uno Åhrén (1897–1977) to design a three-part table that seated 16 people and a tall four-leaf folding screen. In 2021, the Nationalmuseum was able to acquire these unique pieces thanks to a generous gift by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum and the Hirsch Fund. This article focuses on how Mann Clow came to take an interest in Swedish decorative arts and the breakthrough for Swedish design in the US in the 1920s.

The Tessin Lecture 2021: Nature Inside: Plants and Flowers in the Modern Interior
Penny Sparke
Through a study that examines the changing roles and meanings of plants and flowers in both private and public indoor spaces created in the period following industrialisation and urbanisation in the western world, this article discusses the importance of design historians considering the “natural” alongside the “material” and the “spatial”. Tracing a narrative through from the Victorian era to that of architectural and design Modernism, Late Modernism and beyond, it demonstrates the way in which this addition transforms the way we currently think about the history of the Modern Interior.

Editorial staff

Editors: Ludvig Florén, Magnus Olausson and Martin Olin.
Editorial Committee: Ludvig Florén, Carina Fryklund, Eva-Lena Karlsson, Helena Kåberg, Ingrid Lindell, Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, Daniel Prytz and Cilla Robach.
The publication has been funded by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum.
E-ISSN: 2001-9238