My latest article(s): Crown Prince Frederik at 50 & Rosendal Palace

The May issue of Majesty (Vol. 39, No. 5) is now on sale, and while most of it is understandably dedicated to the upcoming wedding of Prince Harry of Britain and Meghan Markle, I write about Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, who will turn 50 in May, and how the once troubled young heir found himself.
In the same issue there is also a new instalment of my occasional series on palaces, this time about Rosendal, the small but exquisite Empire style palace which Carl XIV Johan built at Djurgården in Stockholm.

My latest article: The palaces and capitals of Carl XIV Johan

This year’s first issue of The Court Historian (Volume 18,1), an international academic journal published by the Society for Court Studies, is now out and the cover story is my article “Bernadotte Architecture: The Palaces and Capitals of King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden and of Norway”. For several reasons King Carl Johan got to build relatively little in Sweden, but Norway provided him with the chance to build virtually an entire new capital and Carl Johan personally made several significant choices which put his indelible mark on the Norwegian capital. However, the Swedish aspect of the story of Carl Johan and architecture is far from uninteresting, and I believe it is the first time that his architectural heritage in both kingdoms is seen in relation to each other, thereby providing some new insights – for instance making the much-discussed choice of Hans D. F. Linstow as the architect of the Royal Palace in Christiania seem almost self-evident.
In Aftenposten today I also have a short comment about Oscarshall Palace, correcting the claim made in that newspaper two days ago that this palace was never meant to be inhabited. As I have shown earlier, Oscarshall was intended to be a royal residence and was used as such by King Oscar I.

Royal jewels: Queen Desideria’s malachite parure

Today the Nordic Museum in Stockholm opens a new exhibition showing some 1,000 items of jewellery from the museum’s vast collection. Among the highlights is a neoclassical parure of gold and malachite which has belonged to Queen Sophia of Sweden and of Norway.
The parure consists of a tiara, a necklace, a large brooch, a pair of earrings (one of them damaged) and two bracelets. The tiara is 5 centimetres high and 19 centimetres long, while the necklace measures 44.5 centimetres.
Gold of four nuances surround the cameos carved in malachite with classical scenes after the great Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. The central cameo of the tiara shows “day”; the brooch depicts “night”. In the necklace are cameos showing Aiskylos and Hygieia, Hercules and Hebe.
The tiara bears the mark “SP” and the French assay mark 1819-1839, which has made it possible to establish that it was created by the jeweller Simon Petiteau (1782-ca. 1860) in Paris, probably in the 1820s or 1830s.
It has been suggested that the parure may have belonged to Queen Desideria of Sweden and of Norway, and a look at the inventory of her jewels drawn up after her death in December 1860s proves that this is indeed the case. The parure is also listed in the jewellery inventory of her daughter-in-law Queen Josephina following her death in 1876 and then in the inventory after Queen Sophia’s death in 1913.
Apparently none of the heirs of Queen Sophia wanted this parure, which may have seemed very out of date by 1913, and it was decided to donate it to the Nordic Museum. Queen Sophia also owned a similar parure of gold and lava which had also belonged to Queen Desideria and is now the property of Queen Sophia’s great-great-granddaughter, Désirée af Rosenborg, who was given it by her grandmother, Princess Margaretha of Denmark, on her coming of age.
There is also a similar parure, of malachite and pearls, which may have belonged to Empress Joséphine of the French, in the possession of the Fondation Napoléon.
No definite closing date has been set for the exhibition at the Nordic Museum, but it is expected to last at least until May. Read more about the exhibition here (external link). All photos are press photos by Mats Landin, copyright the Nordic Museum.

New books: A guide to the works of C. F. Hansen

Christian Frederik Hansen (1756-1845) is considered one of the greatest Danish architects in history and in recent years his reputation has grown also internationally, to such an extent that he is now sometimes mentioned among the great European architects of the classicist era.
Some 150 works by his hand are known, of which 77 are in existence today – among them Christiansborg Palace Church, the Metropolitan School, the Cathedral and the Court House are known to most residents of and visitors to Copenhagen.
Thomas Roland has gathered those 77 works in a volume titled C.F. Hansen i Danmark og Tyskland – En billedguide, which was published by Frydendal at Frederiksberg on 25 January. The book has also been published in German, for, as the author points out, it is essential to understand that the Danish realm in which C. F. Hansen was born was not the Denmark of today.
At the time it consisted of the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, the Norwegian dependencies Greenland, Iceland and the Faeroes, as well as overseas colonies. For that reason many of Hansen’s works are today to be found in Germany – in particular in Altona, which 200 years ago was the second largest city in the Danish realm, but has today been swallowed up by the German city Hamburg. A single building whose façade has been attributed to Hansen can also be found in Norway (Fossum Manor).
Thomas Roland’s excellent book opens with well-written, thoughtful introductory chapters on classicist architecture in itself and those who introduced it in Denmark (Saly, Jardin, Harsdorff), the life and career of C. F. Hansen and glimpses of his contemporaries in Denmark and Germany.
Hansen’s “grand tour” had gone to Italy and, as Roland points out, his works were primarily influenced by Italian and Roman ideals from antiquity and the Renaissance. Roland places him among what he calls “the second generation” of classicist architects, those who are known in France as “revolution architects”. Their buildings are simple and monumental at the same time, perfectly proportioned and mostly void of unnecessary ornamentation. Hansen avoided repeating himself and strove to give each building an expression of its own.
His architecture was ground-breaking around 1800, but unlike for instance his great German contemporary Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Hansen clung faithfully to the classical ideals throughout his life and avoided experimenting with the neo-Gothic or other historicist styles. As he also held the position of “overbygningsinspektør”, which meant that it was up to him to approve the designs submitted by other architects, and held that position until retiring at the age of 88 in 1844, it could hardly be avoided that younger architects influenced by the changing ideals of their days came to consider the old master a hopeless reactionary who stood in the way of stylistic developments. That may in itself also have contributed to the neoclassical era in Danish architecture lasting as long as it did, Roland argues.
The main part of the book is devoted to the 77 existing works: villas, townhouses, manors, public buildings, churches, palaces, monuments, a bridge, stables, pavilions, industrial buildings and Christian VII’s tomb - but no furniture - beginning in 1785 and ending in 1839.
It should be noted that not all 77 works can be attributed to C. F. Hansen with absolute certainty, but Roland will in most cases let the reader know what implies that it is a Hansen work. Some of them are also only in part Hansen’s works – they may be older buildings which he altered, they may be his works but radically changed at a later stage or in the case of the second Christiansborg Palace only parts of it survived the devastating fire in 1884 and are now integrated into the third Christiansborg. Such things are also taken into account by the author, who if possible includes a photo of the original state of buildings which have since been altered.
Each work is presented in a brief text and profusely and beautifully illustrated – in most cases both exterior and interior, details and entirety. There are also maps showing the location of each building as well as its GPS position and a note on accessibility. As such this book is a guide in both meanings of the word – it is ideally suited both for those seeking an introduction to one of Denmark’s greatest architects and his works and for those who wish to go and see the works with their own eyes.

What to see: The Throne of Denmark

There are several royal thrones preserved in Denmark, but The Throne is the one which can be found in the Throne Room at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. This room is where Queen Margrethe receives foreign ambassadors presenting their credentials, but these days the monarch does not actually sit on the throne.
The throne, which dates from 1822, is held by Katia Johansen of the Danish Royal Collection to have been designed by Christian Frederik Hansen, often considered the greatest architect in Danish history and one of the leading neoclassical architects in Europe. It was made for the King’s Throne Room at the second Christiansborg Palace, which was among Hansen’s many great projects in Copenhagen in the early nineteenth century.
However, Hansen, unlike many other architects, did not generally design furniture for his buildings and at Christiansborg it seems he mostly left that part of the job to his assistant (and son-in-law twice over), Gustav Friedrich Hetsch. And the art historian Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen insists that it was Hetsch rather than Hansen who designed the throne. The actual work was carried out by the woodcarver Christian Thielemann.
Before coming to Denmark Hetsch had worked in the Paris studio of Charles Percier, Napoléon I’s court architect, and the throne is at least to a certain extent inspired by Napoléon’s own throne in the Tuileries (rescued from the fire in 1871 and now in the Louvre).
The throne, which is made up by two winged lions, was originally covered in red velvet carrying the monogram of King Frederik VI and can be seen in that condition in some paintings where the King is shown standing in front of it. It formed part of a magnificent throne arrangement which was held up by two marble caryatides by the famous sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, originally meant to be part of a monument to Napoléon in Warsaw.
The throne itself was rescued when the second Christiansborg Palace burnt down in October 1884 and returned to the third Christiansborg Palace in 1924, where it found its place in the Velvet Room, the temporary throne room, until the actual Throne Room was completed in 1933. Whereas the second Christiansborg had had separate throne rooms for the King and Queen, the third palace has only one such room and the Queen’s throne (also rescued from the second palace) has been placed next to the King’s, an arrangement which may look somewhat odd as the Queen’s throne is slightly taller than the King’s.
It is not quite clear where the throne had been in the meantime. Following Christiansborg’s fire a throne room was created for Christian IX in Christian VII’s Mansion at Amalienborg and photos show another and (at the time) more modern throne. This throne room was too small for the ceremony on 20 November 1905, when King Christian IX received a deputation from the Norwegian Parliament and gave his formal consent to his grandson’s acceptance of the Norwegian throne.
A temporary throne room was thus set up in the Great Hall of Christian VII’s Mansion and we know that the throne from Christiansborg was used for this occasion. The newspapers commented that it was probably the first time that Christian IX, despite his 42-year reign, did actually sit on the throne.

A summer palace in winter hibernation

Without any particular reason I thought I would post some photos of Rosendal Palace in Stockholm taken this weekend – the small pleasure palace built by Carl XIV Johan all boarded up and sitting peacefully in the snow. Come May the palace will again open its doors, but as for now it seems almost in hibernation.
I could add that the new issue of Gård & Torp (no 1-2011) has several pages on Rosendal, with some interesting, detailed interior photos by Ingalill Snitt.

What to see: The Eric Ericson Hall (former Church of Carl Johan), Stockholm

The Eric Ericson Hall, which was until 2001 the Church of Carl Johan (commonly known as the Skeppsholm Church), is one of Stockholm’s few architectural monuments to the era of Carl XIV Johan as well as a prime example of Swedish empire-style architecture.
It replaced the Admiralty Church from the 1630s, which was located on Blasieholmen (approximately where the National Museum now stands) and which burnt down in June 1822. As its predecessor, it was intended to serve the capital’s naval base, which was located at neighbouring Skeppsholmen.
Following the fire, Lieutenant-Colonel Professor Fredrik Blom, Carl XIV Johan’s favourite architect, was commissioned to submit designs for a new church and also to suggest a place for it. However, Blom was on a secret mission to Christiania (now Oslo), whence he had been sent by the King to search for a suitable location for the Royal Palace which Carl Johan was planning.
Before Blom returned to Stockholm Admiral Carl Fredrik Coyet had chosen the hilltop at Skeppsholmen, an island linked to Blasieholmen by a pontoon bridge (made permanent in the 1860s). Another architect, Carl Fredrik Sundvall, was in the meantime also asked to draw up designs, but Blom made his own proposals after he returned from Norway in February 1823.
Of his two suggestions, the relevant authorities set their eyes on the cheapest one, but when the issue came up in State Council on 28 October 1823, the King and government decided for the more expensive one, estimated to cost 53,815 riksdaler banco.
This was an octagonal central church – quite unusual in Sweden at the time – and through the personal intervention of the King, Blom also managed to have the rather simple roof planned changed into a low dome in 1833. The dome is surmounted by a temple-shaped lantern consisting of eight Corinthian columns.
The resulting building is one of the many churches in the world which are obviously based on the Pantheon in Rome. The idea of building a Pantheon-style church in Stockholm had often been put forward in the days of Gustaf III, but had then never led to any results.
As Blom had never been to Italy, it has been suggested that a mediating link between Pantheon and the church at Skeppsholmen might have been Nicodemus Tessin the Younger’s 17th century Church of Holy Trinity in Blom’s hometown Karlskrona – which would be fitting as Karlskrona was since 1680 the headquarters of the Navy.
Inside the octagonal interior, 20 Ionic columns form a circular room and support the coffered, domed ceiling. Between the arcades one can find niches with statues of apostles, which were eventually joined by two larger sculptural groups by Johan Niclas Byström.
Work on the church progressed very slowly and came to a halt more than once, partly for financial reasons, partly because of the lack of manpower. Blom had moved the location slightly from the spot chosen by Coyet to a more complicated terrain, which caused the work on the ground and foundations to take several years. The architect’s long European tour from 1829 to 1832 may also have played a part.
On 7 July 1842 King Carl XIV Johan gave permission for the church to be named after him and it was consecrated on the 24th of the same month. The King also presented the church with its silver.
One might think that the Church of Carl Johan, an architectural monument to his age, might have been a natural place for Carl XIV Johan to be buried, but the founder of the Bernadotte dynasty was ever conscious of the need to stress his own position as a link in the long line of Swedish monarchs and thus he was buried in the Riddarholm Church where most of his predecessors since the 17th century rested.
However, the Church of Carl Johan features prominently in Emile Mascré (or Maseré)’s state portrait of the King, now at Rosersbergs Palace, which was painted in his silver jubilee year 1843 and shows the 80-year-old monarch surrounded by symbols of the achievements of his reign.
The naval base left Skeppsholmen in 1969 and the church thus lost its congregation. Yet it continued to serve as a church until 5 December 2001, when it was deconsecrated. The former church remained shut and disused until 2010, when it was leased to the Eric Ericson International Choral Centre and renamed the Eric Ericson Hall. It can now also be used for profane events, such as the government’s dinner on the eve of the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel last summer.

New books: Frederik VIII’s Mansion

Following the restoration of Christian VII’s Mansion at Amalienborg a monumental two-volume work dealing with the mansion’s history, architecture and renovation was published. Now that the restoration of Frederik VIII’s Mansion is completed one has chosen a different and less scholarly approach, resulting in the book Frederik VIII’s Palæ – Restaurering. Ombygning. Kunstnerisk udsmykning, edited by a group consisting of Mads Falbe-Hansen, Carsten Kjær Sørensen, Dorte Bülow, Poul Schülein and Jens Bertelsen and published by Aristo Forlag. Apparently there is also a paperback version in English, titled Frederik VIII’s Palace [sic]: Restoration. Rebuilding. Artistic Decoration.
Following a foreword by Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, Peter Elgaard in the first chapter deals with the Amalienborg complex and the Frederik Town, of which it is part. Amalienborg, at the very heart of the Frederik Town, ranks as one of the loveliest architectural complexes in Europe and Elgaard also briefly presents its architect, the renowned Nicolai Eigtved, and makes some interesting points about buildings Eigtved may have encountered on his travels and which could have inspired him in his work on Amalienborg.
Bente Scavenius considers the history of Frederik VIII’s Mansion and its interiors, while Poul Schülein and Jens Andrew Baumann offer an insight into the choices and priorities made during the restoration process. Berit Møller looks at the colours of the interiors, particularly the ceilings, observing that the architect Jørgen Hansen Koch, who redecorated it in neoclassical style in 1827-1828, was obviously familiar with and chose to follow Goethe’s colour theory.
Lin Rosa Spaabæk and Mette Thelle take a closer look at the room which Johan Laurentz Jensen decorated with floral paintings, while Jacob Fischer considers the garden. Poul Erik Tøjner writes about the contemporary art with which the mansion has been decorated and finally Mads Falbe-Hansen looks back at the restoration process of which he was in charge.
Although one managed to keep the cost within the budget, much turned out differently from what was originally planned. The installation of the new artistic scheme was only suggested two years into the process and Falbe-Hansen also makes the point that it was only while the work was in progress that they realised the significance of the building they were working on.
Its empire-style interiors were created by Jørgen Hansen Koch at the same time as C. F. Hansen, now considered the greatest of Danish neoclassical architects, was working on the second Christiansborg Palace. Except for the Palace Church, the second Christiansborg was lost in the great fire of 1884, thus leaving Frederik VIII’s Mansion as the prime example of empire-style royal interiors.
When the project group realised this and that the mansion thus includes some of the most significant and comprehensive empire style interiors in Northern Europe it was easy to decide what should be at the heart of the restoration project: to recreate the mansion’s original clear floor-plan to the extent it was possible and practical, to preserve and strengthen the empire style interiors and to highlight modern forms where modern elements were added.
The chapters are all rather short and thus each of them offers more of a glimpse into the topic than a thorough treatment of it. Yet taken together, the chapters give a good overview of the mansion and the restoration process.
The publisher stresses that this is “the official book” on the process and occasionally parts of it read as celebratory speeches in which the various people involved thank each other profusely for the cooperation. And unlike Kirsten Lindborg in her 2005 book on the mansion, everyone is careful not to utter a critical word about the damage done to the building during the stewardship of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid.
The book’s great strength is the illustrations and there are indeed more illustrations than texts. There are page after page of excellent photos of the sun-bathed interiors (without furniture, as they were seen by 479,246 visitors during the public opening before the crown princely family moved in), the exterior and the garden. Robert Fortuna has taken most of the photos of the work in progress and the interiors, while Torben Eskerod has shot the completed artworks.
But it must be said that the book would have benefited from better proof-reading. There are many references to Christian VII’s Mansion, yet it is almost habitually called Christian VIII’s Mansion, which is another building. Also Frederik VII himself is sometimes called Frederik VIII. And we are even told that the mansion is located at the King’s New Square rather than Amalienborg Square!
The throne which was used by Frederik VI’s daughter, Princess Vilhelmine, in Frederik VIII’s Mansion during her marriage to Prince Frederik Carl Christian (the future Frederik VII) had originally been made for her sister Caroline with her intended marriage to her uncle Prince Christian of Hesse-Cassel in mind – here they all get mixed up and the throne is said to have been made for “Prince Frederik Carl Christian of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Vilhelmine”.
Christian VIII was never Crown Prince, nor was the current Queen ever Crown Princess. And if King Frederik VIII and Queen Louise married in 1869 on page 106, how can they celebrate their silver wedding in 1898 on page 107? There are also more than one example of illustrations not showing what the captions claim they do show. In a production like this such sloppiness ought to have been avoided.

Crown princessly couple move into Haga Palace

Today Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel have moved into Haga Palace, the royal court has announced. The renovation of the palace was completed this summer, but the crown princessly couple’s cramped schedule has meant that it was only now that they had time to make the move. The royal court has promised that interior photos will be released later.
The small, neoclassical palace in the Haga Park in Solna, just outside Stockholm, was built in 1802-1805 by the architect Carl Christoffer Gjörwell. It is adjacent to the exquisite Gustaf III’s Pavilion and the so-called “ruins” of the huge palace which Gustaf III intended to build, but which was left unfinished when he was assassinated in 1792.
His son, Gustaf IV Adolf, found his father’s pavilion too small to house a family and had a new built to accomodate his children. It was thus first known as “the children’s mansion”, but acquired the name “the Queen’s Pavilion” during the reign of Carl XIII, when Queen Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta stayed there in the summers.
The future Oscar I also spent summers there with his family, but it was only his widowed daughter-in-law, Princess Teresia, the Dowager Duchess of Dalecarlia, who made it a permanent home. After her death in 1914 it was used by Prince Erik, the mentally challenged youngest son of Gustaf V. Following his death in 1918 it was opened up to children who had lost their homes as a result of World War I.
The most famous royal inhabitants were the parents of the current king, Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Sibylla, who moved into Haga Palace following their wedding in 1932. Their four daughters became colloquially known as “the Haga princesses” and the future Carl XVI Gustaf was born at Haga on 30 April 1946.
Nine months later Prince Gustaf Adolf was killed in an airplane accident and in 1950 the widowed Princess Sibylla moved to the Royal Palace when Haga was due to undergo repairs. However, she decided to remain at the Royal Palace and in 1966 King Gustaf VI Adolf renounced his royal right of disposal in favour of the government.
The government subsequently used the small palace as a conference centre and guest house. In April last year Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced that the government had decided to return the right of disposal to the royal family in order for it to serve as a home for Crown Princess Victoria and her family.

My latest article: The Royal Palace, Sweden and Russia

It is commonly stated in the literature on the Royal Palace in Oslo that its architect, Hans D. F. Linstow, was primarily influenced by Danish and German architecture. However, in her interesting book Monumentalarkitektur i Oslo (2008), Kari Hoel, professor of art history at the University of Oslo, argued that Swedish architecture had also been an inspiration and pointed towards Elghammar Manor in Sudermania, Sweden, as a building with a strong resemblance to the original designs for the Royal Palace (which were altered before completion). Professor Hoel is convinced that Linstow during one of his visits to King Carl Johan had seen the book Elghammar’s architect Giacomo Quarenghi had published about his works and drawn inspiration from it.
In an article in the latest issue of Kunst og Kultur (no 3-2010), the leading Norwegian art journal published by the National Museum, I investigate the theory further. While Kari Hoel only considered the façade I have also looked at the interiors and am thus able to point out that the Ceremonial Hall at the Royal Palace, which was one of the first interiors designed by Linstow, is almost an exact replica of the Grand Gallery at Elghammar. Obviously this strengthens the assumption that Linstow was familiar with Elghammar.
However, Elghammar, which was commissioned from Quarenghi by Curt von Stedingk when the latter was Sweden’s ambassador in Russia, is quite untypical of contemporary Swedish architecture. The Swedish building closest to Elghammar in style was the Bonde Mansion in Stockholm, which has been attributed to Erik Palmstedt (demolished in 1899). I point out some similarities between the Bonde Mansion and the Royal Palace which speak of another connection.
Also very interesting is Krontorp Manor in Wermlandia, which is almost a miniature version of Elghammar. It stands out clearly from Swedish manor architecture and has more in common with Norwegian manors of the early 19th century. Krontorp was commissioned by a courtier to house King Carl Johan on his travels between his two capitals and the interesting thing is that the building, which was erected at the same time as the Royal Palace in Oslo was begun, traditionally has been attributed to none other than Linstow.
Some art historians have in recent years argued that Krontorp’s architect might rather have been Fredrik Blom, Carl Johan’s favourite Swedish architect, but I point out several factors speaking against Blom and in favour of Linstow. If the Linstow attribution is correct, Krontorp could be seen as the “missing link” between Elghammar and the Palace.
I also look at some other relevant buildings of interest – among them the Palladian Villa Pisani in Stra, which may well have inspired Quarenghi – and reach the conclusion that while Elghammar and Krontorp are certainly related to the Royal Palace in Oslo, they are untypical of Swedish architecture of the time in the same way as Quarenghi’s works are in many ways untypical of Russian architecture of the epoch – however, Linstow’s architecture certainly has things in common with Quarenghi’s. Any architectural influences from Sweden and Russia on the Royal Palace should therefore be seen as coming from individual buildings rather than larger national trends.
The article includes twelve illustrations of altogether nine buildings. Among them are the façades of, from the top, Elghammar Manor, the Royal Palace as it was projected, and Krontorp Manor.

What to see: The Antique Temple, Potsdam

Three years after leaving her home at the New Palace in Potsdam to join her husband, Wilhelm II, in exile in the Netherlands, the last German Empress, Auguste Viktoria, was repatriated to Germany to be buried in the Antique Temple in Potsdam’s Sanssouci Park. Other members of the imperial family have since also found their final resting place in the temple, but the Emperor himself is still missing.
The Antique Temple was built by Carl von Gontard in 1768 to house parts of King Friedrich II’s collection of antiques. It can be found behind some trees on the garden side of the New Palace and forms a pendant to the Temple of Friendship on the other side of the Main Alley.
King Friedrich Wilhelm III later moved his uncle’s collection to the then newly-completed Old Museum in Berlin. Several generations later Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Viktoria decided to have the temple reconstructed as a future mausoleum for themselves, but work had not yet started when revolution swept away the German monarchies in 1918.
Great respect and affection was shown towards the former Empress when her body returned to Potsdam in 1921 to be laid to rest in the temple. There she was joined by her son Prince Joachim, who had committed suicide in 1920, and later by another son, Prince Eitel Friedrich, as well as Prince Wilhelm, the eldest son of ex-Crown Prince Wilhelm, who was killed in action during Nazi Germany’s invasion of France in 1940.
Ex-Emperor Wilhelm II himself died in exile in Doorn in 1941 and was laid to rest in a mausoleum in the park of the estate where he had spent the last two decades. That mausoleum has room for two sarcophagi and his second wife, Hermine, whom he married in 1922, had wanted to be buried with him. At the time of her death in Soviet captivity in Frankfurt am Oder 1947, it was deemed too complicated to have her remains transferred to the Netherlands and she was therefore also laid to rest in the Antique Temple.
Thus both Wilhelm II’s wives now rest in the Antique Temple. Wilhelm II has decreed that he too will eventually be buried there, but only when the monarchy has been reintroduced in Germany. It might in other words be a while before his body is repatriated.
Closed off and in a derelict state, the Antique Temple has meanwhile been covered in graffiti, including the words “Revolution!” carved into the façade.

What to see: The New Guard House (Neue Wache), Berlin

When King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in 1815 returned to his capital Berlin at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, planning began for a new guard house to be built towards the eastern end of the main street Unter den Linden.
The New Guard House was built in the years 1817-1818 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the most famous of Prussian architects. With this small building Schinkel, in the words of Gottfried Rieman, “developed his concept of an architecture of classicist magnificence, manifested, in the years to come, in all his major works”.
The guard house mixes a Roman castrum with a Greek temple, but was also conceived to be a monument to the Prussian victory over Napoléon. As such it was flanked by statues of some of the leading Prussian generals and a Victoria forms the centre point of the tympanum.
As the name implies, it was first used to house the guardsmen and thus it was there the changing of the guard took place in the days of the monarchy. Emperor Wilhelm I used to watch the ceremony from a window in Altes Palais, his mansion across the street, a habit which eventually became an obligation – Baedtker’s guide to Berlin stated that the Emperor could be seen in his window at that time and therefore he felt he could not disappoint the tourists.
Following the end of the monarchy, Heinrich Tressenow in 1931 turned Neue Wache into a memorial to soldiers killed in action. After WWII GDR made it a monument to the victims of fascism and militarism – the statues of the generals were accordingly removed.
Since 1993 Neue Wache is a memorial to all victims of war and tyranny. Under the oculus is Käthe Kollwitz’s sculpture “Mother with dead son”, inscribed “Den Opfern von Krieg und Gewaltherrschaft”.

Dehn’s Mansion in Copenhagen lost in fire

A great tragedy struck Copenhagen and Danish architectural history yesterday morning when the historic Dehn’s Mansion, next to Amalienborg, was lost in a fire.
With its pendant Bernstorff’s Mansion, Dehn’s Mansion formed a central part of Nicolai Eigtved’s grand plan Frederik’s Town, created to mark the tercentenary of the Oldenburg dynasty in 1749. Dehn’s Mansion is situated on the northeastern corner of Bredgade (originally Norgesgade) and Frederiksgade, flanking the street leading to Amalienborg from the Marble Church. As such, Dehn’s Mansion is irreplacable. The only positive thing seems to be that the facade is mostly undamaged, but the beautiful rococo and empire style interiors are completely destroyed.
Dehn’s Mansion was built for Frederik Ludvig von Dehn by the German architect Johann Gottfried Rosenberg. Like Bernstorff’s Mansion, Dehn’s Mansion has also been home to several royals, among them Princess Louise Augusta (sister of Frederik VI) and her husband Duke Frederik Christian of Augustenburg and most recently Prince Harald (son of Frederik VIII) and Princess Helena. In recent decades the mansion has housed offices. It was completely renovated in 1983-1986.

Politiken reports: http://politiken.dk/indland/article963489.ece

The restoration of Frederik VIII’s Mansion

As mentioned yesterday Frederik VIII’s Mansion at Amalienborg has during the last six years undergone an extensive renovation process to make it suitable as a residence and a home for Crown Prince Frederik and his family. The last touches were still being added when I was there last Wednesday, but the royals will be able to move in after the summer.
The renovation process has cost 220 million DKK and has been very complicated, mainly because of the great damage caused to the house in the last 250 years, especially during those years when King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid resided there.
Most traces of the original interiors, presumably by Amalienborg’s architect Nicolai Eigtved, were erased when the building was turned into a military school in the 1760s and by Jørgen Hansen Koch’s extensive renovation when it became a royal residence in 1827-1828.
The 2004-2010 restoration process has therefore aimed mainly to recreate Koch’s interiors, but has at the same time sought to re-establish Eigtved’s rococo floor plan where possible. One prominent example of this is the ground floor vestibule, facing the Amalienborg Square, which already in the 1820s had been divided into two separate rooms, but which has now again become one.
King Frederik VIII and Queen Louise, who lived there from their wedding in 1869 until their deaths in 1912 and 1926 respectively, furnished the mansion in keeping with the taste of their age, but made few permanent alterations. The next inhabitants, King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid, who settled there in 1936, on the other hand made many permanent alterations.
Queen Ingrid, who sprang from the artistically gifted Bernadotte dynasty, was often praised for her good taste and was known to have a knack for grandeur. But when it came to the family home at Amalienborg, comfort and fashionable taste were obviously more important than the preservation of the building’s historical and artistic heritage.
What was done to Frederik VIII’s Mansion in the days of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid was simply atrocious. It has later been claimed that the King and Queen behaved in a very authoritarian way to the architects when they were reluctant to humour the royal couple and that they thereby managed to force through their wishes by overruling the responsible architects.
It was fashionable in the 1940s and 1950s to paint the walls and the ceilings of a room in the same colour, giving the room the appearance of a box. This was in marked contrast to the ideals of the empire style, which differentiated clearly between walls, floors and ceilings. Queen Ingrid’s taste for discreet colours also contrasted starkly with the empire style’s very colourful interiors.
Only 1/3 of the mansion was made available to Frederik and Ingrid when they married in 1935 and a renovation was carried out by Thorvald Jørgensen, perhaps best known as the architect of the third Christiansborg Palace, in the following years. In connection with their accession to the throne a more thorough renovation was done by the architect Thomas Havning between 1947 and 1950. After King Frederik’s death in 1972 his widow reorganised her home quite radically, obviously so that the memories would not be so hurtful.
The Great Hall, seen in the second photo, became Queen Ingrid’s sitting room after 1972. But even before that the marble-imitating walls, as well as the ceiling, had been painted white. Only the gilt on the columns was retained to add some sparkle to the central room of the building. Yet this was one of the rooms which had been least altered and it was therefore fairly simple to give it a more colourful appearance.
The entrance hall (photo 3) had also been painted completely white – walls, columns and ceiling, but not the staircase of Norwegian marble. It now appears in yellow and grey marble imitation.
The Throne Room, seen in the fourth picture, was last used as such by King Frederik VIII. The completion of the third Christiansborg with its oval throne room made throne rooms at Amalienborg superfluous and Queen Ingrid used it as her bedroom. The coffered ceiling with is floral ornaments and the guilt Arabesque decorations on the pillars were all covered by white paint and the beautiful doors were removed. The doors are now back and the walls, which were originally hung with red fabric, have been painted a very dark purple. The artisans have also done a great job in restoring the pillars’ guilt decorations. This will now be a room for reading and music.
The room next to the Throne Room was in the days of Queen Ingrid divided into three, one part of which became a bathroom. Bathrooms were generally scattered throughout the mansion and moved around as it suited the inhabitants, the installation of pipes causing much damage to the building. This bathroom was later turned into a kitchen in the strong orange, plastic-fantastic style so beloved by the late 1970s. The room has now been reunified and it was thankfully possible to save the ceiling (fifth photo), but other traces of the room’s original interiors had been erased.
The Green Hall, seen in the sixth photo, all but one of the flower murals in the arcades were painted over and for practical reasons a staircase was installed, breaking through the floor in such a manner that one of the doors entered into empty space. Now the murals have been recovered and the inner wall has been moved slightly to allow the installation of a narrow staircase in the passage which runs through the centre of the building.
The room which will now be the office of Crown Princess Mary’s secretary is located in a part of the building which was damaged by fire in 1891. After that a neo-rococo ceiling was created in the room, incorporating the arms of Denmark (seventh picture) and the monogram of the then Crown Princess Louise. When Queen Ingrid made the room her library, the ceiling was lowered by covering the 1891 ceiling with concrete. The older ceiling was discovered by chance during the restoration process.
Another room which had been divided up into several smaller is the one which will now be the Family Dining Room. Here the current architects, in the absence of traces of the original interiors, have been inspired by Jørgen Hansen Koch to the extent that they have created a ceiling in empire style (eighth photo) which is taken from a drawing of the library, which was apparently never executed in the 1820s.
Following Queen Ingrid’s permanent move to the Chancellery House at Fredensborg in 1997 and her death three years later, the mansion had been allowed to decay and it was therefore a building badly in need of repair which was made available to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary when they married in 2004.
The restoration of Frederik VIII’s Mansion has been beautifully done and has brought back much of the glory of the empire style at the same time as the building’s original rococo layout has been recreated. However, empire and rococo do rarely go well together, and the only part of the restoration I am a bit reluctant about is the removal of (the admittedly mostly secondary) parquet floors in several rooms, which has revealed the original wooden floorboards. Parquet floors or painted wooden floors would harmonise better with the splendour of the empire interiors than simple floorboards are capable of doing.
There are also some clashes between empire interiors and rococo chandeliers, but this is hard to avoid, bearing in mind that there is no bottomless well of available chandeliers to choose from.
While Frederik VIII’s Mansion is open to the public (throughout May) the rooms will be seen without furniture, but this may in fact partly remain the case for a long time to come. The furniture which was found in the mansion at the time of Queen Ingrid’s death ten years ago was either divided between her heirs or in such bad condition that it cannot be used. Unlike some kingdoms, Denmark does not have a vast amount of furniture in storage, meaning that it may take a while for the mansion to be completely furnished.
A book about the restoration process will be published in the spring, while the TV documentary on the process which was recently shown on DR may be viewed at the following link:
http://www.dr.dk/DR1/Dokumentar/2010/0219103032.htm

What to see: Frederik VIII’s Mansion, Amalienborg, Copenhagen

The recent renovation of Frederik VIII’s Mansion at Amalienborg has returned the mansion to past glory and its rightful place as a major example of Nordic neoclassicism, while the incorporation of contemporary works of art has brought new life to the building.
Frederik VIII’s Mansion, previously known as Brockdorff’s Mansion, was the last of the four Amalienborg mansions to become a royal residence. The complex of four mansions situated around an octagonal square was drawn up by Nicolai Eigtved as the centrepiece of his grand project Frederiksstaden (Frederik’s Town), celebrating the tercentenary of the Oldenburg dynasty in 1748.
Eigtved’s beautiful rococo mansions, which from the outside are almost identical, provided the noble families of Moltke, Schack, Levetzau and Brockdorff with residences fit for a king. And that was what they would soon become.
The foundation stone for Brockdorff’s Mansion was laid in 1751 and it is believed that the building was completed by 1758, as the last of the four Amalienborg mansions. Joachim von Brockdorff himself never lived there, but rented it out, and after his death it was bought by the neighbour across the square, Adam Gottlob Moltke, in 1763. Two years later Moltke sold it to King Frederik V.
In 1767-1768 the architect Christian Carl Pflueg rebuilt Brockdorff’s Mansion to house a school for army cadets, which was succeeded by the naval cadet academy in 1788. The use of the mansion as a school explains why its façade, unlike the other Amalienborg mansions, is fitted with a clock.
In 1794 Christiansborg Palace burned down and King Christian VII moved into Moltke’s Mansion, while Crown Prince Frederik (VI) took up residence at Schack’s Mansion and Hereditary Prince Frederik settled in Levetzau’s Mansion. Only Brockdorff’s Mansion did not yet become a royal residence.
Amalienborg was meant to be only a temporary residence while Christiansborg was being rebuilt, but when the second Christiansborg was finally completed in 1828, Frederik VI chose to remain at Amalienborg. So have all his successors, with the sole exception of Frederik VII, who took up residence at Christiansborg when he became king in 1848.
Amalienborg might have held uncomfortable memories for Frederik VII. It was for his sake that Brockdorff’s Mansion was eventually turned into a royal residence, when he married Frederik VI’s daughter, Princess Vilhelmine, in 1828. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1838.
Frederik VI entrusted the task of refurbishing Brockdorff’s Mansion as a residence for his daughter and son-in-law to the architect Jørgen Hansen Koch. Koch’s rebuilding meant that much of the original rococo interior was lost, but the empire-style interiors created by Koch count among the most prominent empire interiors in Scandinavia and it is mostly these that the restoration which is now being completed has sought to bring back.
Princess Vilhelmine left the mansion following her remarriage to Duke Carl of Glücksburg in 1839. The mansion then became the home of Landgrave Wilhelm and Landgravine Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel, the latter a sister of the new king, Christian VIII. It thus became known as “the Landgrave’s Mansion”. It was here that their daughter Louise in 1842 married Prince Christian of Glücksburg, who became King Christian IX when the male line of the Oldenburg dynasty became extinct in 1863.
The Landgravine died in 1864, followed by the Landgrave three years later. Two years on, their grandson Crown Prince Frederik married Princess Lovisa of Sweden and Norway and the newlyweds took up residence in the mansion. It was only when they succeeded to the throne as King Frederik VIII and Queen Louise in 1906 that this mansion at last became the residence of a reigning monarch.
At about the same time the four mansions were renamed, each receiving the names of the first monarch to reside there. Thus Moltke’s Mansion became Christian VII’s Mansion, Levetzau’s became Christian VIII’s and Brockdorff Frederik VIII’s. The only exception was Schack’s Mansion, which had first been inhabited by Frederik VI, but which was named Christian IX’s Mansion, something Queen Margrethe believes was probably due to veneration felt for the recently deceased king.
Following Frederik VIII’s sudden death in 1912, Dowager Queen Louise remained in the mansion until her death in 1926. It was then left empty until her grandson Crown Prince Frederik married Princess Ingrid of Denmark in 1935. The next year they moved into the mansion, but for financial reasons only 1/3 of it was refurbished for them.
When Crown Princess Ingrid gave birth to her third daughter in 1946, the family had clearly outgrown their modest premises and they were then allowed the use of the mezzanine. But the following year they succeeded to the throne and could thus take possession of the entire building. Further refurbishments were thereafter carried out by the architect Thomas Havning between 1947 and 1950. Sadly the refurbishments carried out in the days of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid caused much damage to the mansion.
As the widowed Queen Ingrid grew old, the great proportions of this mansion became too much for her and in 1997 she moved permanently to her summer residence, the Chancellery House at Fredensborg. Except for the guest apartments made available to her younger daughters in the side wings, Frederik VIII’s Mansion remained empty for the remainder of Queen Ingrid’s life and continued to be so after her death in 2000.
A major restoration process began when Crown Prince Frederik married Mary Donaldson in 2004 and Frederik VIII’s Mansion was assigned them as their official residence. The process is now about to be completed and the Crown Prince and his family may move into the mansion in the autumn. They will however continue to have their main home in the Chancellery House at Fredensborg.
While previous royal residents have lived in the entire building, the current occupants will have their private quarters on the mezzanine and in the two side wings, while the two main floors are given over to office space and state rooms. This is a significant departure from earlier times, but a development which has also been seen elsewhere, such as at the Royal Palace in Oslo, where King Harald and Queen Sonja now have a large apartment on the second floor, while state rooms and offices take up the rest of the building.
Back in 1828 Princess Vilhelmine was given the use of the first floor, while Prince Frederik stayed on the ground floor. This tradition has survived in the way that Crown Prince Frederik will have his office on the ground floor, like Frederik IX had, while Crown Princess Mary’s will be on the first floor, just like Queen Ingrid’s office was.
The main room of the first floor is the Great Hall, seen in the second photo, which Queen Ingrid used as her living room following the death of King Frederik (no wonder the old Queen thought the distances were too big in this building). On the same floor is also the former Throne Room (third photo), which has the perhaps most beautiful doors in Scandinavia (fourth picture). That room served as Queen Ingrid’s bedroom, but will now be the reading and music room.
The fifth photo shows the Garden Hall, which is just above the ground floor’s Garden Room (sixth picture) with its tapestries. In front of it one finds the vestibule, which Jørgen Hansen Koch divided into two rooms, but which has now been “reunited” and which offers a wonderful view towards the Amalienborg Square (seventh photo). Also on the ground floor is the Formal Dining Room (eighth photo), which was one of the best preserved of Koch’s interiors, but which has been painted ox-blood red rather than the previous yellow and has received new mirrors by the artist Erik A. Frandsen.
The mirrors are part of a wedding gift from the Realdania foundation, a project whereby works by leading Danish contemporary artists will decorate Frederik VIII’s Mansion. These works of art are however removable, unlike the permanent alterations which caused much damage to the mansion in the days of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid.
Frederik VIII’s Mansion is open to visitors until the end of May.

Lost treasures: The triumphal arch at Eger Square, Oslo

While cities like Paris, London, St Petersburg and Milan have several each, Oslo is not among the capitals provided with a triumphal arch or gate. This is probably because of the lack of any great triumphs to commemorate, but there have been a number of temporary triumphal arches in Oslo, most of them erected in connection with royal events.
The second half of the 19th century was the age of temporary monuments – in Oslo can be mentioned a monument to the Swedish-Norwegian union outside the Royal Palace on the occasion of its jubilee in 1864, a monument to King Harald the Fair-haired when the supposed millennium of Norway’s unification was celebrated in 1872 and the triumphal arch in Eger Square built to welcome the newlywed Crown Princess Victoria in 1882. The latter was designed by Georg Andreas Bull and the sculptures of ancient Norwegian kings were made by Brynjulf Bergslien.
Princess Victoria of Baden and Crown Prince Gustaf of Norway and Sweden had married in her hometown Karlsruhe in September 1881 and made their triumphal entry into the Norwegian capital in February 1882. Karl Johan’s Street from Eger Square to the Royal Palace was festively decorated, but the welcome was not really a warm one. Victoria was never to like Norway much and, for a militant antidemocrat like her, she arrived at almost the worst possible moment.
The Norwegian monarchy was in the middle of one of its most severe crises, which ended with the impeachment of the Selmer ministry and the introduction of parliamentarianism in 1884. This signalled the end of the King’s political powers, but the endgame would last for another 21 years.
During the next great crisis, in 1895, Crown Princess Victoria was among the warmongers, eagerly supported by her cousin, Emperor Wilhelm II. Even after the peaceful dissolution of the union in 1905, it rankled deeply with Victoria, according to her brother-in-law Prince Carl, that “the revolution in Kristiania had not been suppressed by the force of weapons”.
When her husband, as King Gustaf V, was to visit Norway in 1917, it was made quite clear to him that he was expected to come without his wife. The official explanation was that there would not be room in the Royal Palace for Queen Victoria and her retinue. No problem, said the Swedes, the Queen could stay in her own railway carriage. Thanks, but no thanks, replied the Norwegians.
Had she come, there would have been no triumphal arch to welcome her. The arch of 1882 was dismantled when the festivities were over and for nearly 130 years there was not a trace of it. But last year a new shopping centre opened at Eger Square and just inside the entrance an entire wall is covered with a photo of the triumphal arch. The illustration above is taken from The Graphic, 4 March 1882.

Exhibition on the Royal Palace and Linstow

The National Museum’s department of architecture will later this year arrange the exhibition “Slottet og Linstow – Den nye hovedstadens grunnstein” (“The Royal Palace and Linstow – The Foundation Stone of the New Capital”). When Norway became independent in 1814 Christiania (now Oslo) became its capital once again and in the following decades underwent a rapid transformation which included the erection of numerous monumental buildings worthy of a royal capital.
The most prestigious of these was the Royal Palace, which, through its location to the west of the then city centre, also came to point out the direction in which the capital developed. The young and comparatively inexperienced Hans D. F. Linstow was chosen by King Carl XIV Johan to be the architect for the Palace and it was also Linstow who drew up the new city plan and sketched out the capital’s main street, which is naturally called Karl Johans gate.
The work on the Royal Palace met with so many difficulties and took a quarter of a century. Work started in 1822, the foundation stone was laid in 1825 and the Palace was completed in 1849. By then Carl XIV Johan had been dead for five years and Linstow himself had only two years left to live. Thus he never had time to build much else, but one of Europe’s most beautiful royal palaces and most stately streets are his lasting legacy.
The exhibition, which will run from 7 May to 10 October, will deal with the history and the interiors of the Palace. Among its highlights will be “the Grand Composition”, i.e. Linstow’s most important drawings for the interiors, executed in connection with his study tour to Denmark and Germany.
The National Museum’s department for decorative arts will by the way host the exhibition “Sakrale skatter fra Kreml” (“Ecclesiastical Treasures from the Kremlin”) from 23 September 2010 to 25 January 2011.

New books: Carl XIV Johan’s favourite architect

Fredrik Blom (1781-1853) was an officer-turned-architect who became a leading protagonist of Swedish neoclassicism and the favourite architect of King Carl XIV Johan. Among his best-known works are Rosendal Palace, the former Carl Johan’s Church (popularly known as Skeppsholmskyrkan) and his transportable houses, but he also put his mark on Stockholm through several other monumental buildings. Blom valued functionality and his works are mostly quite simplistic – in my view sometimes too simple to be called elegant.
The art historian Carine Lundberg never finished her planned book on Fredrik Blom, meaning that until now no major study of him has been available. The military historian Thomas Roth tries to rectify this with his new book Fredrik Blom – Karl Johans arkitekt, published by Bokförlaget Signum in October, but does not quite succeed.
The author takes a mostly chronological approach to the life and work of Fredrik Blom, interspersed with some more thematic chapters. He identifies Blom’s buildings and gives quite detailed descriptions of what they look like. Roth is mostly concerned with the exteriors, and we learn little about Blom’s interiors. Rosendal Palace, arguably Blom’s most important work, is not dealt with as thoroughly as would seem natural – the author is content to note that the small palace has been the subject of another book some years ago.
The greatest problems about this book are that it seems the author does not really understand architecture and that he sees Blom in a much too isolated way. His buildings are seen in relation neither to each other nor to the works of other architects of the time. The author’s knowledge of architecture seems to stop at headings such as “neoclassicism”, “empire style” and “neo-Gothic”, but of course these styles are diverse and complex. Roth several times refers to “Blom’s style”, but does not say much about what was characteristic of his style and what set him apart from other architects’ works.
Without further ado, Roth includes Krontorp Manor among Fredrik Blom’s works, proclaiming that he is convinced by the art historian Hans-Olof Boström’s theory that Blom is a more likely architect than Hans D. F. Linstow, to whom Krontorp has traditionally been ascribed. He does not enter into Boström’s arguments (which are debatable), but only says that “the style and the similarities with Elghammar” indicates that Blom was the architect. There are other possible explanations for the similarities between Krontorp and Elghammar, and in fact Krontorp is very untypical of Blom’s style, in fact of Swedish neoclassicism in general. It is also difficult to understand how Roth is thinking when he writes that Norrnäs Manor is reminiscent of Rosendal Palace.
Only in the penultimate paragraph of this book does the author try to put Blom into context. Then he says that Blom’s style was most strongly inspired by Desprez, Quarenghi and Palladio, but that the architect most closely related to Blom’s style was Carl Ludvig Engel. It is beyond me how Thomas Roth has reached such a conclusion – in fact Engel’s elegant, richly ornamented buildings must be considered almost the opposite of the simplicity characteristic of Fredrik Blom’s works.
The author is obviously very knowledgeable about Fredrik Blom and has apparently put much work into this book. But this isolated knowledge is not enough and the absence of a context coupled with Roth’s limited understanding of architecture in general makes it a less valuable book that in might otherwise have been. As it is, it demonstrates that knowledge and understanding may in fact not be as closely related as is generally assumed.

Royal jewels: The Norwegian emerald parure

The emerald parure is the grandest set of jewellery in the hands of the Norwegian royal family and is as such always worn by the Queen for the most important state occasions – the wedding of the Crown Prince and the Emperor of Japan’s state visit being two examples. It has also been worn for three British coronations.
An oft-repeated legend says that the jewels originally belonged to Empress Joséphine of the French – some even maintain that the tiara was worn by her to her and Napoléon’s coronation in Notre-Dame in December 1804. However, this seems likely to be a legend invented by the Swedish writer Sigyn Reimers in the 1950s.
In fact there is no parure in any of the relevant inventories of the Empress’s jewels whose description matches the Norwegian parure. According to an oral tradition in the royal family the emeralds themselves are from a Russian mine which is now extinct. As far as I know, emeralds were not found in Russia until the 1830s, while the Empress died in 1814.
But the emerald parure did certainly belong to Joséphine’s daughter-in-law, Duchess Auguste Amalie of Leuchtenberg. In her will she left it to her daughter, ex-Empress Amélie of Brazil, while her eldest daughter, Queen Josephina of Norway and Sweden, inherited a sapphire parure which to this day is frequently worn by Queen Silvia.
As the Brazilian Empress’s only child predeceased her, she left her jewels to her sister Josephina upon her death in 1873. The Swedish courtier Countess Mina Bonde apparently owned a portrait of Queen Josephina in old age wearing the emerald parure, but the current whereabouts of this painting are unknown.
After Josephina’s death in 1873, the emeralds passed to her daughter-in-law Queen Sophia. Upon her death in 1913, Sophia left them in her will to her youngest daughter-in-law, Princess Ingeborg. Ingeborg frequently wore the parure, but also made some rather unfortunate changes to it. She removed the drop-shaped emeralds on either side of the centre stone of the tiara and made earrings out of them and she also removed most of the seven pendants from the necklace and distributed them between her children.
It has often been said that Princess Ingeborg gave the emerald parure to her middle daughter, Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, when she gave birth to a son, the present King of Norway, in 1937. This is however incorrect. Princess Ingeborg gave the parure to her daughter, wrapped in a scarf, at the Central Station in Stockholm in August 1940 when the Crown Princess embarked for the USA. With Norway occupied by Nazi Germany, Ingeborg was not sure if she would ever see her daughter again or if Märtha would ever be able to return to Norway. The emeralds were supposed to be her “life insurance” – the intention was to sell the emeralds one by one if they got in a desperate financial situation.
Luckily this was never necessary and Crown Princess Märtha was able to return to Norway in 1945. She died already in 1954 and her mother, who outlived her by four years, expressed the wish that the emeralds should be inherited by Märtha’s son and be part of the Norwegian “crown jewels”.
Märtha’s daughter, Princess Astrid, borrowed them on some occasions when she was first lady of Norway, but since 1968 they have been worn by her sister-in-law, Queen Sonja. (The portrait of the Queen is by Cathrine Wessel/the Royal Court).