three 17th-century paintings from the collection of gustaf adolf...

Three NTth-Century Paintingsfrom the Collection of Gustaf Adolf Sparre

Carina FryklundCurator, Old Master Drawings and Paintings

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

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qÜÉ k~íáçå~äãìëÉìã has acquiredthree important Flemish and Dutch cabi-net pictures from the former collection ofCount Gustaf Adolf Sparre (NTQSÓNTVQ):two genre scenes in a smaller format byDavid Teniers the Younger (Fig. N) andJacob Toorenvliet (Fig. O), and a landscapeby Gijsbrecht Leytens (Fig. P). All threepaintings are in their collector’s distinctivecarved 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 wealthiestmerchant families.1 Born on S JanuaryNTQS, 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 culturedGothenburg family of merchants. Theirmarriage in NTQM brought an influx ofwealth to the Sparre dynasty. Following thefire which in winter NTQS, a week afterGustaf Adolf’s birth, destroyed the originalSahlgren house in Gothenburg, Sara’smother Birgitta Sahlgren commissionedBengt Wilhelm Carlberg (NSVSÓNTTU), thecity’s leading architect, to rebuild on thesame site, facing Stora Hamngatan and itscanal, in NTRP. This impressive Neoclassicalpalace, known as the Sahlgren-SparrePalace, which was to house Gustaf AdolfSparre’s collection, still stands today.

Gustaf Adolf’s parents died when hewas still young. He was educated at the uni-versities of Lund and Uppsala, but thestrongest influence on his further educa-tion was his highly cultivated grandmother,

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Three NTth-Century Paintingsfrom the Collection of Gustaf Adolf Sparre

Carina FryklundCurator, Old Master Drawings and Paintings

Fig. N David Teniers the Younger (NSNMÓNSVM), Tavern Interior with Peasant Lighting his Pipe, NSQMs.Oil on oak, OPKV ñ NV cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNORK

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP


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the very best in Sweden next to the RoyalCollection.

By New Year NTTO, when Sparre re-turned to Gothenburg from his Europeantravels, he was the owner, together with hiscousin Jacob Sahlgren, of the Sahlgren-Sparre Palace. He decided to modernisethe building, redecorating and refurnish-ing in fashionable Gustavian style a suite ofrooms, in particular two drawing rooms onthe first floor that were to house his picturecollection. The style of the decoration re-flected the recent remodelling of the RoyalPalace in Stockholm, and it seems likelythat Sparre employed the same architectand decorators. Around NTTR Sparre com-missioned ornamental frames for thepaintings, to match the rest of the gallery’sdecor. These were probably made by thesame joiners, including the sculptor GustafJohan Fast, who created the apartment’smirror frames and panelling. The Swedishart historian Ingmar Hasselgren noted thatFast, 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 havebeen responsible for the boiseries in the re-decorated rooms in the Sparre-SahlgrenPalace. Since Fast usually worked underthe court architect Jean Eric Rehn, whosework resembles the renovations in theSparre apartment, Hasselgren also suggest-ed that Rehn may have been Sparre’s ar-chitect.2

As an art collector, Sparre was particu-larly keen on Dutch and Flemish genrepainting, from simple depictions of drink-ing and smoking peasants to the richly de-tailed fijnschilderij of the Leiden artists. Healso assembled a collection of Old Masterdrawings, eventually inherited by his son-in-law Jacob Gustaf De la Gardie, parts ofwhich are today housed in the Nationalmu-seum.3 The majority of Sparre’s picture col-lection comprised small-scale Flemish andDutch cabinet pictures from the NTth cen-tury. Although Sparre did acquire copies ofsome large-scale religious paintings, such asPeter Paul Rubens’Descent from the Cross andAnthony van Dyck’s grisaille ricordo of his

Birgitta Sahlgren, who encouraged hergrandson’s interest in the arts. From themiddle of the NUth century onwards, gen-erations of wealthy young Swedes were en-couraged to make the Grand Tour of con-tinental Europe. Birgitta Sahlgren thus en-couraged her grandson to travel and pro-vided the necessary funding. Gustaf Adolfwas abroad continuously from NTSU untilthe end of NTTN. Some of his diaries andhis correspondence with his grandmotherhave survived, and provide an insight intohis growing interest in the arts, especiallypainting, and his urge to collect. Paris wasa magnet to which Swedish Grand Tourists

were drawn, and French culture and tastein the arts predominated, including thecollecting of paintings, drawings and sculp-ture. This was the age of Count Carl GustafTessin (see article on p. NMV), whose mag-nificent collection constitutes the core ofthe French Rococo holdings in the Na-tionalmuseum, which are among the great-est and best preserved outside France.Tessin also assembled an important collec-tion of Old Master drawings. Sparre’s largecollection was similarly built up primarilythrough extensive purchases in theNetherlands and in Paris during the laterNUth century, and was considered one of

Fig. O Jacob Toorenvliet (NSQMÓNTNV), Man Holding a Jug (The Sense of Taste), c. NSTV. Oil on copper,NSKQ ñ NPKQ cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNOSK


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Crucifixion, he purchased very few largeworks.4 Indeed, few pictures of any dimen-sions greater than one metre entered theSparre collection, one exception being JanLievens’ magnificent The Apostle Paul at hisWriting Desk, which the Nationalmuseumwas fortunately able to acquire in OMNO.5

Sparre’s tastes were entirely in line with pre-vailing trends among NUth-century connois-seurs in the Netherlands and Paris where,as graphic reproductions, the works ofDutch and Flemish artists were widely ap-preciated at this time. The recently ac-quired Tavern Interior with Peasant Lightinghis Pipe (Fig. N) from the NSQMs, by the

landscapist Gijsbrecht Leytens (NRUSÓÅKNSQOLRS), who is better known for his at-mospheric winter scenes. With its charac-teristic features – an imposing north Euro-pean mountain and forest landscape com-bined with fanciful Italianate buildings, pas-toral idylls and exotically dressed groups oftravellers – the Stockholm picture is closelycomparable to the artist’s late MountainLandscape in the Rain (Fig. Q), one of hisvery few landscapes other than winterscenes.6 The painting is representative ofkey trends in Flemish landscape paintingafter NSMM.

Antwerp painter David Teniers theYounger (NSNMÓNSVM) – the artist repre-sented by the largest number of works inSparre’s collection – and Man Holding a Jug(Taste) (Fig. O) from around NSTV, by theLeiden fijnschilder Jacob Toorenvliet(NSQMÓNTNV), are prime examples of thetastes of the age. Another important groupin the Sparre collection consisted of land-scapes and pastoral scenes. The impressiveWooded Mountain Landscape with Waterfalland Travellers (Fig. P) is a typical Flemishfantasy landscape in the tradition of Joos deMomper, probably painted in the first halfof the NTth century by the rare Antwerp

Fig. P Gijsbrecht Leytens (NRUSÓNSQOLRT), Wooded Mountain Landscape with Waterfall and Travellers, first half of NTth century. Oil on oak, SUKQ ñ NMNKR cm.Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, åã TNOQK



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made a great impression on the youngSwede, it was nonetheless his travels in theLow Countries that shaped his collectingtastes, making his collection rather unusualin the Scandinavia of his day. While hewrote extensively about what he saw on histravels and what impressed him, he re-mained silent on the subject of his acquisi-tions. However, it is clear that he started tocollect Dutch and Flemish Old Masters onhis first visit to the Netherlands inNTSUÓNTSV, and he continued to buy in avery similar taste at auctions during his staysin Paris. Sparre left Sweden for the firsttime in the summer of NTSU, travelling toLondon, where he stayed with MalteRamel, a friend from his student days andhis future brother-in-law. A letter fromBirgitta Sahlgren dated P August, thankinghim for his two earlier letters, containssome good advice and reveals the strengthof the bond between them. She hoped“that my dearest grandson is careful with

During Sparre’s lifetime, the greater part ofhis collection, fifty-eight out of a total of upto a hundred pictures – including the threerecently acquired by the Museum – was dis-played in the gallery that he had set up inthe Sahlgren-Sparre Palace. Sparre movedsome of his collection to Castle Kulla Gun-narstorp, the country seat near Helsing-borg that he had bought in NTTR, andwhere he lived after his marriage to Elisa-beth Ramel in NTTT. An inventory drawnup following his death in NTVQ gives theprecise locations of each of the fifty-eightpaintings kept in Gothenburg, all of whichwere in the Blue Drawing Room. Allowingfor paintings that have been dispersed, itwould be possible to recreate this hangingfairly accurately. The pictures were hung insymmetrical groups – portraits, landscapesand genre scenes mixed together – with acommon vertical centre-line, and pendantsarranged at the sides. Teniers’ Tavern Interi-or and Toorenvliet’s Man Holding a Jug,

which are in identical frames, seem to havebeen hung as pendants, as part of anarrangement that had as its centrepiece alarge Bacchanal by Jacob Jordaens. The lat-ter was surrounded mostly by small-scalegenre pictures by artists such as Adriaenvan Ostade, Willem van Mieris and Adriaenvan der Werff, including several with drink-ing and smoking peasants. On anotherwall, Leytens’ Mountain Landscape was hungas a pendant to an identically framed wood-ed landscape by Alexander Keirinckx show-ing A Skirmish between Cavalry Men and FootSoldiers. King Gustav III rearranged his ownart gallery in the NTUMs, very much alongthe lines of the new hanging in Gothen-burg, which Hasselgren suggested mayhave served as the model for the king.7

Sparre’s tastes as a collector wereformed during his Grand Tour of England,Holland and Belgium, as well as duringlonger stays in Paris in the years NTSUÓNTTOand NTTVÓNTUM. While Paris certainly

Fig. Q Gijsbrecht Leytens (NRUSÓNSQOLRT), Mountain Landscape in the Rain. Oil on oak, QMKO ñ TNKR cm. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig.


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his money, remembering that it is easy togive out money, but not always easy to bringit back into one’s purse …”. 8 Sparre seemsto have enjoyed life in London, where hefrequented the theatre and opera. Here hemet and befriended the architect WilliamChambers, born in Gothenburg to Englishparents, and it seems likely that Chambersprovided an introduction to London collec-tions.

Sparre’s first months of travel in theLow Countries are well documented in hissurviving diary from Q October–Q Novem-ber NTSU. He left London for Flanders on 4October, travelling to Bruges, where hespent the better part of eight days visitingthe city’s art treasures. Among the works hesaw, he especially admired those by theNetherlandish NRth-century masters Janvan Eyck and Hans Memling, Baroque mas-terpieces by Rubens, and Michelangelo’s fa-mous sculpture of The Madonna and Childin the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk. He thenleft for Ghent, where he continued to seekout picture collections, noting works byRubens and Anthony van Dyck, GerardSeghers and Gaspar de Crayer. In theMichielskerk he admired Van Dyck’s Cruci-fixion. After a three-day stay in Ghent,Sparre then travelled to Antwerp, stayingovernight in the Schelde city before contin-uing on to Amsterdam via Utrecht andGouda. In Amsterdam he admired Rem-brandt’s Nightwatch, along with pictures bythe Rembrandt pupil Govaert Flinck and byVan Dyck. Of greatest interest from thisshort stay in Amsterdam is an entry in hisdiary noting that someone there had madearrangements for paintings he had pur-chased to be forwarded to Gothenburg.9

After six days in Amsterdam, Sparretravelled to Haarlem on OO October, thenon to Leiden and The Hague. At TheHague he may have had introductionsthrough Count Gustaf Philip Creutz, whohad been Swedish ambassador there andwho, as ambassador to France, was to be-come a close friend. Sparre visited the cele-brated Cabinet of Willem V, largely formedin the NTRMs and ÛSMs, and still being addedto at the time of his visit. Here he made de-

visited the collection of Jan and Pieter vanBisschop, admiring an array of cabinet pic-tures of the kind his own collection wouldeventually comprise, works by Dujardin,Wouwerman, Mieris and Dou. From Rotter-dam he went back to Antwerp, where he ad-mired the Baroque altarpieces and sculp-tures in churches and monasteries. He sing-led out for praise Rubens’ Descent from theCross in the cathedral. Seeing this workmust have inspired him to purchase the

tailed notes of the pictures on display, andthis collection clearly made a strong im-pression on him. He was most taken withPaulus Potter’s Bull and Gerard Dou’s TheYoung Mother, both now in the Mauritshuis.Other artists mentioned form a roll call ofthose he was to collect himself, among oth-ers Gabriel Metsu, Van der Werff, JanSteen, Adriaen van Ostade, Teniers, Brouw-er and Karel Dujardin. Sparre then trav-elled to Delft and to Rotterdam, where he

Fig. R Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (NTORÓNUMO), Portrait of Gustaf Adolf Sparre, NTSV. Private collection.



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of Sparre’s biography and description of hiscollection given in the present article are basedon Hasselgren’s seminal book unless otherwisenoted.OK Hasselgren NVTQ, pp. NMRÓNMU.PK Börje Magnusson, “The De la Gardie(Borrestad) Collection of Drawings”, inArt Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, SI NVUOI pp.NNPÓNQM; and idem, “Dutch and FlemishDrawings in Swedish Collections”, in Art Bulletinof Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Volume NOI OMMRIStockholm OMMS, pp. VNÓVS.QK The Rubens copy and Van Dyck’s ricordoboth sold at auction in London, Sotheby’s,RÓS December OMMT, lots S and NNM.RK See most recently Carina Fryklund,“The Apostle Paul at His Writing Desk”, inArt Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, NVIOMNOI Stockholm, OMNP, pp. NNÓNS, with earlierliterature cited in n. N to that article.SK Rüdiger Klessmann, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Die flämischen Gemälde desNTK und NU. Jahrhunderts, Braunschweig OMMP,pp. TQÓTR, no. TM, illus. Although not signed, theBraunschweig picture has been attributed to theartist since before NTPT. On Leytens see furtherP. J. J. Reelick, “Bijdrage tot identificatie van denMeester der Winterlandschappen (G. Leytens?)”,in Oud-Holland RVI NVQOI pp. TQÓTV; EdithGreindl, “Contribution à la connaissance dustyle de Gysbrecht Leytens”, in Pantheon PI NVTPIpp. ORQÓOSP; and Ursula Härting, “Der Meisterder Winterlandschaften, der Maler GysbrechtLeytens”, in Die Kunst, NVUU, pp. OMÓOT.TK Hasselgren NVTQ, pp. NPTÓNPU.UK The correspondence, kept in the De la GardieArchive at the University of Lund, is quoted byHasselgren NVTQ, pp. ONÓOO.VK A picture by Adriaen van der Werff,Two Children Playing with a Cat Holding a Bird inIts Jaws, seems to have been purchased at auctionin Amsterdam in NTSV. See the sale catalogue,London, Sotheby’s, R December OMMT, lot NQKNMK The collection was passed down through theWachtmeister family and kept at Wanås, where,until NVTU, it was held as entailed property. Overthe years, the original Sparre collection has beendispersed, most recently in OMMT, when some QM

paintings were auctioned at Sotheby’s, London,and on R December OMNO, when another fourwere sold at Bukowskis, Stockholm, includingthe three now acquired. In OMNO the National-museum was able to acquire The Apostle Paul at hisWriting Desk directly from the owners.

small copy of it on copper, though it is notknown whether he bought it during this vis-it to Antwerp or on another occasion. Heprobably also visited the Dominican con-vent of St Catherine, which housed VanDyck’s altarpiece of Christ on the Cross Adoredby Saints Catherine and Dominic, of which heowned the artist’s autograph grisaille ricor-do. The latter is reputed to have been keptby the nuns in the convent, and later sold toan unidentified Swedish nobleman. InAntwerp Sparre also visited dealers, notingdown prices, although his diary does notspecify what he himself may have bought.At the dealership of Jean Pilaret, he ad-mired a Teniers “extraordinaire” – thoughprobably not, by its description, any of theones he owned. He visited the premises ofJacques Emanuel van Lancken, where henoted a landscape by Teniers as well as asmall Ostade of a peasant smoking.We do not know when Sparre left Antwerp,or what his movements were in the lastweeks of NTSU, but he was in Paris early inNTSV and seems to have remained thereuntil NTTN. He clearly enjoyed life in theFrench capital, staying on despite en-treaties from his grandmother to returnhome in NTSV. He spent substantial sumsthere, and we may assume that some ofthese were for pictures. In NTSV he sat for aportrait by the French painter Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (NTORÓNUMO) (Fig. R).Like many young Swedes visiting Paris, heprobably stayed at the Swedish embassy,where the ambassador, Count Creutz, heldsway over a cultivated circle of friends.Creutz was extremely influential, and cer-tainly helped Sparre, along with many oth-er young Swedes, to gain access to Frenchcultural life. He had a notable collection ofwhat were then contemporary pictures. Inautumn NTTM Sparre travelled to Geneva,visiting Voltaire on the return journey toParis. Letters from his grandmother revealher increasing frailty, and on NO May NTTNshe died. This seems to have precipitatedSparre’s return to Gothenburg. On hishomeward journey he stopped in Kassel tosee the celebrated collection of pictures be-

longing to the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel,which has as its core a large group of Dutchand Flemish cabinet pictures of the kindSparre evidently enjoyed. When Sparre re-turned to Paris several years later, inNTTVÓNTUM, staying as the guest of Ambas-sador Creutz, he took the opportunity toadd to his picture collection. Buying at thePoullain sale in NTUM, possibly with Langli-er acting as his agent, he acquired GerardTer Borch’s remarkable picture of A HorseStable, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, LosAngeles, as well as others by Isack vanOstade and Jordaens.

Sparre and his wife Elisabeth Ramelhad only one child who survived infancy,Christina, who married Jacob Gustaf De laGardie. It is not known precisely whenSparre’s widow Elisabeth moved the entirepicture collection from the couple’sGothenburg residence to Kulla Gunnars-torp, where she remained until her deathin NUPM. Upon her death, Kulla Gun-narstorp and its contents passed to hergrandson Gustaf Adolf de la Gardie(NUMMÓPP). Gustaf Adolf remained child-less, so that when he died in NUPP the estatepassed to his father Jacob Gustaf de laGardie (NTSUÓNUQO). De la Gardie soldKulla Gunnarstorp in NUPT to Count Carlde Geer, and a few years later, probablyaround NUQM, the picture collection fol-lowed. Count De Geer kept the collectionintact for a few years, but in NURR he sentthe vast majority of it to his granddaughter,who kept it on her estate of Wanås.10

The Nationalmuseum’s acquisition,made possible by a generous donationfrom the Wiros Fund, constitutes a signifi-cant addition to the collection of NTth-cen-tury cabinet paintings. At the same time, itprovides a valuable insight into patterns ofprivate collecting in NUth-century Sweden.

Notes:NK Georg Göthe, Tafvelsamlingen på Wanås,Stockholm NUVR; Ingmar Hasselgren,Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre, NTQSÓNTVQ,PhD diss., University of Gothenburg NVTQ;idem, “Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre ochSparreska våningen i Göteborg”, in Konsthistorisktidskrift RT, NVUU, pp. NQNÓNQQ. The details


three 17th-century paintings from the collection of gustaf adolf...

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