More on the Bernadotte bicentenary

As mentioned before the 200th anniversary of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s election to Crown Prince of Sweden in August 1810 will be celebrated in many ways next year. On the date of the election, 21 August, there will be celebrations in Örebro, where the meeting of the estates which elected Bernadotte was held. It is hoped that the King and Queen of Sweden will attend.
There will also be many exhibitions linked to the bicentenary. The highlight will be the gigantic exhibition “Härskarkonst” about Carl XIV Johan, Alexander I and Napoléon I at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, showing some 400 works of art. The dates for the exhibition are 29 September 2010-9 January 2011. Thereafter the exhibition will travel to the State Hermitage in St Petersburg.
In Stockholm there will also be an exhibition at the Royal Palace, titled “Hemma på slottet”, which will deal with the family life of King Carl Johan. The preliminary dates for this exhibition are 1 October 2010-27 February 2011.
The Nordic Museum in Stockholm will show an exhibition on how Carl XIV Johan was presented by his people in popular artworks. This exhibition will open on 1 June 2010 and close on 30 September the same year.
Back in Örebro, Örebro County Museum will arrange the exhibition “Bernadotte och Örebro”, dealing with the events of 1810, on show from 15 May and throughout the year. Between 1 June and 30 September the same museum will also have the exhibition “Design Bernadotte” about the design work of Sigvard Bernadotte and Prince Carl Philip.
At Stjernsund Palace outside Askersund, a palace which belonged to King Carl Johan, there will be an exhibition called “Spåren av Karl XIV Johan”, showing the traces of the King’s ownership, while the adjacent “Prince’s Pavilion”, which is not normally included in the guided tours, will be opened to show its interiors in Empire style, which in Sweden is known as “the Karl Johan style”.
There will also be events in Pau, where the future King was born in 1763, and in Oslo, the capital of his other kingdom. In Paris the Swedish House of Culture will do an exhibition on his great-great-great-grandson Sigvard Bernadotte’s design.
When opening Parliament on Tuesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf said: “Next year will [...] be a memorable year. 200 years will have passed since the French Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was elected Crown Prince of Sweden. And the present heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, intends to enter into marriage with Mr Daniel Westling next year. 2010 will be a year to remember – particularly in my family”. Coincidentally Tuesday was not only the 36th anniversary of the King’s accession to the throne, but also the 36th birthday of Daniel Westling.
His and the Crown Princess’s wedding will take place in Stockholm’s Cathedral on 19 June, while the wedding of Princess Madeleine and her fiancé Jonas Bergström is expected to take place at the end of the year (or in early 2011), so it will be a hectic year for the Bernadottes.
TV4 recently announced that their documentary series on the Bernadotte dynasty, made by Gregor Nowinski, will be broadcast in six parts starting in April 2010. The series will begin with the Crown Princess and her fiancé and then travel backwards in time through the dynasty’s 200 years.
The photo above shows Brynjulf Bergslien’s equestrian statue of King Carl Johan outside Oslo’s Royal Palace on a December afternoon.