Roslin’s Self-Portrait with his Wife Marie Suzanne GiroustPainting a Portrait of Henrik Wilhelm Peill

Magnus OlaussonDirector of Collections and the Swedish National Portrait Gallery

Art Bulletin of

NationalmuseumStockholm

Volume OM

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm,is published with generous support from theFriends of the Nationalmuseum.

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Items in the Acquisitions section are listedalphabetically by artists’ names, except in the caseof applied arts items, which are listed in order oftheir inventory numbers. Measurements are incentimetres – Height H, Breadth B, Depth D,Length L, Width W, and Diameter Diam.– except for those of drawings and prints, whichare given in millimetres.

Cover IllustrationAlexander Roslin (NTNUÓNTVP), The Artist and hisWife Marie Suzanne Giroust Portraying HenrikWilhelm Peill, NTST. Oil on canvas, NPN ñ VUKR cm.Donated by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum,Sophia Giesecke Fund, Axel Hirsch Fundand Mr Stefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson.Nationalmuseum, åã TNQNK

PublisherMagdalena Gram

EditorJanna Herder

Editorial CommitteeMikael Ahlund, Magdalena Gram, Janna Herder,Helena Kåberg and Magnus Olausson.

PhotographsNatinalmuseum Photographic Studio/LinnAhlgren, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson,Cecilia Heisser, Bodil Karlsson, Per-Åke Persson,Sofia Persson and Hans Thorwid.

Picture EditorRikard Nordström

Photo Credits© Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig(p. NQ)© The Gothenburg Museum of Art/HosseinSehatlou (p. NU)© Malmö Art Museum/Andreas Rasmusson(p. OO)© Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York (p. OV)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre,Paris/Hervé Lewandowski (p. PMF© The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles(Fig. QI p. PN)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre,Paris/René-Gabriel Ojéda (Fig. RI p. PN)© Guilhem Scherf (p. PO)© Bridgeman/Institute of Arts, Detroit (p. PP)© Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris/Jean Tholance(p. PQ)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Paris(p. PR)© Accademia Nazionale di San Luca,Rome/Mauro Coen (Figs, SI NM and NO,pp. NNQÓNNS)© Mikael Traung (Fig. T, p. NNQ)© Stockholm City Museum (p. NOP)http://www.stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?nid=319© Stockholm City Museum/Lennart afPetersens (p. NOQ)© http://www.genealogi.se/component/mtree/soedermanland/eskilstuna/a_zetherstroem_/22850?Itemid=604 (p. NOR)© http://www.genealogi.se/component/mtree/bohuslaen/marstrand/robert-dahlloefs-atelier/22851?Itemid=604 (p. NOT)

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tÜÉå cêÉÇêáâ pé~êêÉ left Paris inthe summer of NTRQ, Alexander Roslin(NTNUÓ NTVP) had to take over various pur-chasing commissions entrusted to theyoung diplomat by his uncle, Count CarlGustaf Tessin. These related to both a vari-ety of luxury items and works of art, butabove all to books. Payments were oftenmade via the Grill trading house, whichhad numerous contacts in banking. Roslinadmittedly found these recurring assign-ments tiresome, but for the sake of his ca-reer he needed powerful patrons. WhenTessin’s protégé Henrik Wilhelm Peill ar-rived in Paris in the mid NTSMs, Roslin andhis wife received him with open arms. Peill,whose mother was a member of theMijtens family of artists, was on an educa-tional tour of Europe, in preparation for afuture position with the firm of his cousin’shusband Carlos Grill.

As an outward sign of the close friend-ship that developed between them, theartist painted this portrait of himself andhis wife Marie Suzanne Giroust (NTPQÓ

Roslin’s Self-Portrait with his Wife Marie Suzanne GiroustPainting a Portrait of Henrik Wilhelm Peill

Magnus OlaussonDirector of Collections and the Swedish National Portrait Gallery

Fig. N Alexander Roslin (NTNUÓNTVP),The Artist and his Wife Marie Suzanne Giroust

Portraying Henrik Wilhelm Peill, NTST.Oil on canvas, NPN ñ VUKR cm.

Donated by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum,Sophia Giesecke Fund, Axel Hirsch Fund

and Mr Stefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson.Nationalmuseum, åã TNQNK

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP

Suzanne Giroust, has the same historicalorigins as the work the Museum has now ac-quired with the support of the Axel HirschFund and the Sophie Giesecke Fund. Thepurchase of the Roslin family portraitwould not have been possible, either, with-out a very substantial contribution from theFriends of the Nationalmuseum and MrStefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson. Itis gratifying to note that an important partof Sweden’s cultural heritage has now beensaved and will in future be able to be shownas part of the permanent collections of theMuseum.

NTTO) at her easel, working on a pastel ofPeill (Fig. N). The painting came into be-ing in NTST, as Peill’s stay in the Frenchcapital was drawing to a close. The portraitwithin the portrait has not been found,though there are several extant copies ofanother version, made by Giroust a yearearlier. The gold box with portrait minia-tures which Roslin is pointing to adds tothe rebus-like character of the picture, andmay possibly have been a lavish farewell giftfrom Peill. That the portrait really was a to-ken of friendship is made clear by the in-scription on the frame – Loin et près (“Faraway and [yet] close”). The motto ofcourse takes on a somewhat comical note,given that the couple’s friend is always pre-sent in the form of the portrait on theeasel. Peill most probably acquired thepainting at the time or in the years imme-diately following. Quite soon after his re-turn home he married the younger AnnaJohanna Grill, daughter of the late director

of the Swedish East India Company, ClaesGrill the Elder, who had died in NTST.Most of the indications are that theyounger woman portrayed on the gold boxis Miss Grill, while the older woman is pre-sumably her mother, the elder AnnaJohanna, Peill’s cousin and future mother-in-law.

Against this backdrop, it is easy to un-derstand why Roslin felt called upon topaint the Grill Family Portrait (Fig. O) beforehe left Sweden in September NTTR. Thispicture of the widowed elder Anna Johan-na Grill and her children Adolf Ulric andthe younger Anna Johanna (married toPeill) readily tied in with the group por-trait of the Roslins now acquired by the Na-tionalmuseum. It did not include the son-in-law Peill, however, but another individ-ual, the deceased paterfamilias Claes Grillthe Elder. As convention demanded, he isrepresented in a different degree of reality,in the form of Gustaf Lundberg’s well-known pastel portrait. The inscription,Unis à jamais (“United for ever”), closelyechoes that of the companion painting,Loin et près, opening up a multiplicity ofmeanings. In the Österby Collection,moreover, these two works joined an olderfamily portrait painted by Martin vanMeytens the Younger during his stay inStockholm forty years earlier, showing theelder Anna Johanna as a girl, with her par-ents Carlos Grill and his wife Hendriana,née Mijtens, who was also Henrik WilhelmPeill’s maternal aunt.

The Roslin family portrait was the lastpainting in this trilogy still in private hands.For a long time it belonged to the descen-dants of the man who was the heir of Hen-rik Wilhelm Peill and his wife, the youngerAnna Johanna Grill, namely her nephew,the ironmaster Baron Per Adolf Tamm.This unique work by Alexander Roslinfrom the Österby Collection eventuallypassed to Baroness Stina Nordenfalk, néeRålamb, whose heirs have now sold the por-trait to the Nationalmuseum. Roslin’s per-haps best-known painting, The Lady with theVeil, another portrait of his wife Marie

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Fig. O Alexander Roslin (NTNUÓNTVP),Grill Family Portrait, NTTR.Oil on canvas, NPN ñ NMM cm.The Gothenburg Museum of Art, Öâã NMOTK

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP