Nordic Museum, Stockholm

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about going to the Nordic Museum to see an antique filing system from the beginning of the 20th century, but the illustrations in watercolor by artist Emelie von Waltersdorff were amazing!  Check them out.

The Nordic Museum is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the Early Modern age (which for purposes of Swedish history is said to begin in 1520) until the contemporary period. The museum was founded in the late 19th century by Artur Hazelius, who also founded the open-air museum Skansen.

For the Nordic museum, Hazelius bought or managed to get donations of objects – furniture, clothes, toys etc. – from all over Sweden and the other Nordic countries; he was mainly interested in peasant culture but his successors increasingly started to collect objects reflecting bourgeois and urban lifestyles as well.

King Gustav Vasa

Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm

We went to the Carl Larson Exhibit at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Carl Larsson (May 28, 1853 – January 22, 1919) was a Swedish painter representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and frescoes.

After several years working as an illustrator of books, magazines, and newspapers, Larsson moved to Paris in 1877, where he spent several frustrating years as a hardworking artist without any success. Larsson was not eager to establish contact with the French Impressionists; instead, along with other Swedish artists, he cut himself off from the radical movement of change.

After spending two summers in Barbizon, the refuge of the plein-air painters, he settled down with his Swedish painter colleagues in 1882 in Grez-sur-Loing, at a Scandinavian artists' colony outside Paris. It was there that he met the artist Karin Bergöö, who soon became his wife. This was to be a turning point in Larsson's life. In Grez, Larsson painted some of his most important works, now in watercolour and very different from the oil painting technique he had previously employed.

Carl and Karin Larsson had eight children and his family became Larsson's favourite models. Many of his watercolours are now popular all over the world. Many of the interiors depicted was a work of Karin Larsson who also worked as an interior designer.

Swedish Museum, of Natural History, Stockholm

The Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg.

The museum was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but goes back to the collections acquired mostly through donations by the Academy since its foundation in 1739. These collections had first been made available to the public in 1786. The Museum was separated from the Academy in 1965.

One of the keepers of the collections of the Academy during its earlier history was Anders Sparrman, a student of Linnaeus and participant in the voyages of Captain James Cook. Another important name in the history of the Museum is the zoologist, paleontologist and archaeologist Sven Nilsson, who brought the previously disorganised zoological collections of the Museum into order during his time as keeper (1828–1831) before returning to Lund as professor.

The present buildings for the museum in Frescati, Stockholm, was designed by the architect Axel Anderberg and completed in 1916, topped with a dome; the main campus of Stockholm University was later built next to the museum.

The museum has an IMAX cinema called Cosmonova. The cinema is also the largest planetarium in Sweden.

Viewing the collection.

Painting and specimen.

Skansen Outdoor Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

I loved Skansen.  The crafts people, the exhibits, the farms were awesome.

Skansen was founded by Artur Hazelius in 1891. It is the world’s oldest open-air museum and is situated on the island of Djurgården within the city limits of Stockholm. The founder’s aims live on in the museum today. He wanted to bring the traditional rural culture to life by exhibiting furnished houses and farmsteads, cultivated plots and gardens and both domestic and wild animals. When Skansen started, its focus was on farming and Sami culture.

Visitors to Skansen meet a miniature historical Sweden reflected both in the buildings and their surroundings – from the Skåne farmstead in the south to the Sami camp in the north. The venues illustrate the different social conditions in which people lived in Sweden between the 16th centure and the first half of the 20th century. The majority of houses and farmsteads are from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Old homestead with sod roof

Making rope out of flax

Making linen from flax

Thatched roof and wagon

Old Town Stockholm (Gamla Stan)

We took a guided tour of medieval Stockholm strolling among the narrow cobblestone alleys and buildings, ending up at the Black Friar's Monastery.

The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's construction.

Stortorget is the name of the scenic large square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchants' houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I.

As well as being home to the Stockholm Cathedral, the Nobel Museum, and the Riddarholm church, Gamla stan also boasts Kungliga slottet, Sweden's baroque Royal Palace, built in the 18th century after the previous palace Tre Kronor burned down. The House of Nobility (Riddarhuset) is on the north-western corner of Gamla stan.

Antique Shop

Tall, narrow buildings.

Cobblestone Street

Saint George and the Dragon

Vasa Museum, Stockholm

THE VASA MUSEUM

The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia.


HIS MAJESTY´S SHIP

It took almost two years (1626-1627) to build Vasa. From dawn to dusk, carpenters, sawyers, smiths, ropelayers, sailmakers, painters, carvers, gun carriage makers and other specialists struggled to complete the navy’s great, new ship. The king, Gustav II Adolf, visited the shipyard to inspect the work.

Vasa was splendid, a hull built of more than a thousand oak trees with 64 cannon, masts over 50 meters high and hundreds of painted and gilded sculptures.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE

On Sunday, the 10th of August, 1628, Vasa lay rigged and ready for sea just below the royal palace Tre Kronor. Ballast, guns and ammunition were all on board.

On the quays and shores along Strömmen, an excited public waited to watch the ship leave Stockholm and celebrate her departure.

Over a hundred crewmen were on board, as well as women and children. The crew had permission to take family and guests along for the first part of the passage through the Archipelago.

THE DISASTER

For the first few hundred meters, Vasa was warped along the waterfront with cables from the shore. The ship did not begin to sail until she reached what is now Slussen. Sailors climbed the rigging to set four of Vasa’s ten sails. A salute was fired, and Vasa slowly began her maiden voyage.

Once Vasa came out from under the lee of the Södermalm cliffs, the sails could catch the wind, but the ship was tender and heeled over to port, then heeled again, even farther. Water rushed in through the open gunports and the ship’s fate was decided. Vasa sank, after sailing barely 1300 meters.

The crew threw themselves into the water or clung to the rigging until rescued, but not all managed to save themselves. Eyewitnesses differ on the exact numbers, but perhaps 30 of approximately 150 people on board died in the loss. After the ship was raised in 1961, the remains of at least 16 people were found.

WHY DID VASA SINK?

The news of the sinking reached the Swedish king, who was in Prussia, after two weeks. The disaster had to be the result of “foolishness and incompetence,” and the guilty must be punished, he wrote to the Royal Council in Stockholm. What exactly lay behind the loss could not be determined with certainty in the inquest held in the palace, but the ship’s lack of stability was a fact: the underwater part of the hull was too small and the ballast insufficient in relation to the rig and cannon. The leaders of the inquest believed that the ship was well built but incorrectly proportioned. After Vasa, many successful ships with two or even three gundecks were built, so something must have been learned from the disaster.

WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?

Vice Admiral Klas Fleming, partly. He had been present before the ship sailed, when the captain demonstrated how crank the ship was by having 30 men run back and forth across the upper deck. On their third pass, the ship was ready to capsize at the quay. The admiral was heard to say that he wished the king were there.

King Gustav II Adolf, partly. He ordered a large ship with so many heavy-calibre cannon, and approved the ship’s dimensions.

Master shipwright Henrik Hybertsson, partly. He was a talented shipbuilder who had delivered several successful ships to the navy, but he had too little experience with building ships with two gundecks.

Captain Söfring Hansson, ultimately. Vasa’s sinking can also be blamed on the captain. It would have been safer to sail the ship with the lower gunports closed, since he knew the ship was unstable. It might have been possible to redistribute weight in the ship or even rebuild it. If the inquest were held today, the captain would probably be held responsible.

http://www.vasamuseet.se

One of the unfortunate individuals who died on the Vasa.

Cannon Balls

Tom Ward, Fulbright Fellow and Craftsman who recreated one of the brass cannons. http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/Creating-the-Cannon/Tom-Ward/
www.tepestcraft.com

Linnetradgarden

We visited the oldest botanical garden in Sweden and many other countries founded in 1655 by Olaf Rudbeck the Elder. It is laid out in the French Style and restored following Linnaeus' and Carl Hårleman's design from 1745. Today approximately 1300 species are grown here. All known to have been cultivated by Linnaeus and arranged according to his own system. We received a guided tour of the museum which was Linnaeus' town home for around 30 years.

Linnetradgarden

Passion Flower

Tired Feet