What to see: Louis De Geer’s Mansion, Stockholm

If the gate in the wall at Götgatan 16 at Söder is open, one will be able to see Louis De Geer’s Mansion, one of Stockholm’s hidden treasures.
It is the earliest building in Dutch Palladianism to be found in Sweden, a style which would eventually leave deep marks on Swedish architecture. The mansion was built between 1646 and 1651, probably after designs by a master bricklayer named Jurgen Gesewitz, who worked for Louis De Geer.
De Geer was born in Liège in what is now Belgium and his family was, like my own ancestors, among the many Walloons who immigrated to Sweden to work in the iron industry following the Dutch-Swedish friendship pact of 1614.
De Geer came to Sweden already in 1615 and soon acquired rich estates. He settled in Stockholm in 1642, where work on the mansion started four years later. Two branches of the family have later been ennobled and the De Geers have produced two Swedish prime ministers. In 1914 Baroness Marianne De Geer af Leufsta married into the Bernadotte family when she became the daughter-in-law of Prince Oscar Bernadotte – her niece Gunnila is the second wife of the former Prince Carl Johan.
Two years after Louis De Geer’s death in 1653 his mansion was bought by Ebba Brahe, the great love of Gustaf II Adolf’s youth and mother of Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, who rose to be one of the leading figures in the reign of Queen Christina. The arms of Ebba Brahe and her husband Jacob De la Gardie can be seen above the gate to the courtyard.
In the 18th century the mansion was turned into apartments. It was restored in the 1960s and these days this Dutch mansion serves, very appropriately, as the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

What to see: Ulefos Manor, Ulefoss

Ulefos Manor in the county of Telemark ranks among the most important Empire style buildings in Norway – the others being the Royal Palace and the old University in Oslo and possibly Fossum Manor near Skien.
In 1775 the property was bought by Nicolai Benjamin Aall (who belonged to a Danish family which had migrated to Norway through Britain) together with the rich landowning brothers Bernt, Jess and Peder Anker. Aall earned a fortune through timber trade and in 1782 he bought out the Ankers. It was his son, Niels Aall (1769-1854), who decided to build a stately home at Ulefoss. Work began in 1800, was concluded seven years later and cost an equivalent of nearly 14 million NOK in today’s money worth. A bust of Niels Aall now stands in front of the building (photo 1).
The identity of the architect is not fully clear. In the first book published on Ulefos (in 1940) Wilhelm Swensen named Jørgen Henrik Rawert (1751-1823) as the architect who made the final drawings after Aall himself and his friend Christian Collett (1771-1833) had made preliminary sketches. But in his recent book on Ulefos, Jo. Sellæg argues that Collett was most likely the actual architect, with Rawert just being consulted or perhaps making some changes or corrections to the design.
Situated on a hill above the Telemark Canal and surmounted by a cupola, the inspiration from Andrea Palladio’s La Rotonda just outside Vicenza is quite obvious. Niels Aall had travelled in England and among the works of English Palladianism Chiswick House (by Lord Burlington, begun around 1725) in London has been mentioned as a possible influence.
The most important room is the Garden Hall, which has been called “the most beautiful room in Norway” by the art historian Carsten Hopstock – who also considers Ulefos and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to be the two most beautiful buildings in the world. A picture of the Garden Hall can be seen here (external link). The chairs and sofas were bought from London in 1805, but were badly damaged in a great fire at Ulefos in 1961. The new covers come from France and are, surprisingly for this house, decorated with the Napoleonic bees.
The wall paintings are done by the Swedish artist and officer Count Axel Otto von Mörner, who sat at Ulefos as a prisoner of war in 1808-1809 after having been captured at the Battle of Toverud. He later returned on behalf of King Carl XIII to try and convince Niels Aall of the advantages of a union between Sweden and Norway, but Aall refused to listen to such schemes.
Norway was at the time a part of the Danish Kingdom, but when the country achieved independence in 1814 Niels Aall was appointed minister of trade by King Christian Frederik, while both his brothers (Jacob and Jørgen) were members of the Constitutional Assembly. Later that year Niels Aall was sent on an ambassadorial mission to London to secure British recognition for Norway. He did not succeed, but following the short war between Sweden and Norway that summer, Aall and another minister, Jonas Collett, negotiated a treaty (the Convention of Moss) with the Swedes whereby Sweden and Norway in November 1814 did after all form a personal union.
There is a so-called “King’s Bedroom” next to the Garden Hall – like many great manors Ulefos kept such a room ready if the King should pass by. Both King Haakon VII and King Olav V have slept there and among other notable visitors are Prince Eugen and his second cousin the Prince Imperial, who visited together in 1878 and left signed photographs.
Even though Niels Aall had been firmly opposed to a union with Sweden and refused to continue as a minister after the union had been agreed upon, his descendants came to serve the Swedish-Norwegian royal family. His son Hans Aall became a member of King Carl XIV Johan’s court and among his duties was translating Norwegian newspapers into French for the French-born King.
In 1903 Hans Aall’s grandson, Cato Aall, the then lord of the manor, was appointed “kammerherre” (chamberlain) at the Norwegian court by King Oscar II. His chamberlain’s uniform and key (fifth photo) are still exhibited in another building at the manor, together with the letter of appointment. When the union was unilaterally dissolved by Norway in 1905, Cato Aall was one of the few Norwegian courtiers who stayed loyal to Oscar II – he did not wish to serve another king and therefore resigned as chamberlain.
In 1943 Cato Aall and his wife Eugenie drew up a will whereby they made Ulefos Manor into a foundation in order to preserve it for the future. In 1989 their daughter-in-law Karen Aall opened the house for guided tours, even though she continued to live there until shortly before her death at the age of 96 in November 2007. With her two sisters she had herself donated their ancestral home, Bogstad Manor in Oslo, to a foundation and she used to quote her mother that “Bogstad does not belong to us, it is just ours on loan”, saying that the same applied to Ulefos.

What to see: The former royal palace Villa Pisani, Stra

A little-known but splendid former royal palace can be found in the small town of Stra, a few kilometres outside Padua on the road to Venice. Villa Pisani was built to glorify the noble Venetian family Pisani and is situated at the bend of the Brenta Canal. There the Pisani family already owned a villa known as Santo Stefano, a simple building from the late 16th century which was demolished in 1720 to make way for a new house.
The task of building the new villa was first given to the architect Girolamo Frigimelica Roberti (1653-1732), but his plans were soon shelved. Following his death the commission was given to Francesco Maria Preti (1701-1774), who completed the work on Villa Pisani in 1756.
In 1735 Alvise Pisani had been elected the 114th Doge of the Republic of Venice and it is said that this was the reason why the villa originally had 114 rooms – today the number is officially given as 168. There are two inner courtyards, separated by the colonnade seen in the last picture. Currently the colonnade houses a sculpture by Mimmo Paladino, which is part of the exhibition “I classici del contemporaneo”, which is on until 30 September.
At the centre of the building is the most magnificent of the rooms – the Ballroom, seen in the fifth photo. The fresco, “The Glory of the Pisani Family”, was done by Giambattista Tiepolo in 1761-1762 and took him only 76 working days. The walls are decorated in trompe l’oeil technique by Pietro Visconti.
The villa itself is Palladian in style, marked by the emerging neoclassicism, but there are also still traces of Baroque. The main façade towards the canal, seen in the first and second pictures, is richly decorated, while the garden façade, seen in the third photo, is simpler. Opposite the villa is the building for the stables, itself a magnificent creation which also served as open-air banqueting hall and now also as an orangery. The Long Pond between them was built in the 20th century.
Following the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the Pisani family found themselves in financial difficulties and on 11 January 1807 its then owner, Ermoloa “Alvise” Pisani, sold the villa to Napoléon I. The French Emperor also being King of Italy, this made Villa Pisani one of the two royal palaces in the Veneto region, the other being the Royal Palace in Venice (now the Correr Museum).
Napoléon himself spent only two nights at the palace – those of 28 November and 13 December 1807, on his way to and from his only visit to Venice. Ten years earlier he had stopped briefly at the villa during the campaign in Italy, commenting on Tiepolo’s masterpiece that it was a pity it was a fresco, “if it had been on canvas it would have looked superb at Fontainebleau!”
The Emperor-King gave the right of disposal to his adopted son Prince Eugène, Viceroy of Italy and Prince of Venice, who hired the architects Giovannia Antonio Antolini, Giuseppe Mezzani and Giuseppe Maria Soli to modernise the palace. Rebuilding, including the creation of imperial and viceregal apartments in Empire style, lasted for several years, which means that Napoléon never actually slept in the so-called “Napoleonic bed” which is now in his bedchamber.
The sixth photo shows one of the redecorated rooms – the Dining Room, which was redecorated in Pompeian style by G. Borsato and Pietro Moro in 1808-1814. The seventh picture is of a pre-imperial room, the Salon of the View-Paintings, which also holds a model of the famous maze which can be found in the palace’s park.
Following the downfall of Napoléon’s empire, Villa Pisani passed to the Habsburgs. It was a favourite residence of Empress Maria Anna, consort of the unfortunate Emperor Ferdinand. The Savoys, who took over in 1866, soon lost interest in the palace. It was abandoned in 1874 and after unsuccessful attempts at renting it out, management was entrusted to the Regional Office for Monuments in the Veneto in 1882.
Although named a national museum, Villa Pisani came to house offices and institutions of various kinds and the palace fell into disrepair. In 1934 Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler held their first meeting there. It is only in recent decades that interest in this glorious building has been revived. Still much of the furniture can be found in other places, such as the Correr Museum in Venice and the Quirinal Palace in Rome, but since the mid-1980s extensive renovation work has been carried out.
The official website:
http://www.villapisani.beniculturali.it/en/index.php