Sunday, July 4, 2021

Another portrait-painting Swede - a selection of portraits by Per Krafft the Elder


Anna Charlotta Schröderheim, née von Stapelmohr, 1773.
She is wearing Nationella Dräkten (National Costume) designed by King Gustav III to be worn by the nobility and the middle class.
Poet and composer Carl Michael Bellman playing the Cittern, 1779.
The artist's daughter Wilhelmina, 1782.
Young boy, 1773.
Madame Ahlgren, wife of Councilor Ahlgren of Arboga, the artist's birthplace, 1788.
Old woman, 1768.
Christina Maria Alströmer, née Siflverschiöld, 1779.
Johan Alströmer, 1779.
Elisabeth Frederike Sophie, Duchess of Württemberg, 1762.
Countess Teresa Kinska Poniatowska, 1765.
Bishop Ignacy Krasicki, circa 1768.
Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, later King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, 1785.
Fredrik Adolf Ulrik Spara af Rossvik, 1792.
Baroness Ebba Sparre af Rossvik, née de Geer, 1792.
Princess Sophie Albertine of Sweden, circa 1770s.
Young lady with  dog, 1764 or 1769.
Portrait of a nobleman, circa 1762-65.
Princess Natalia Alexandrovna Repnina, née Kurakina, circa 1767-68.
Ivan Osterman, Russian envoy and minister to Stockholm, 1773.
Gentleman wearing the male version of the Nationella Dräkten, 1784.
Wife of the above, 1784.
Gustaf Anton Gyldenstolpe, 1777.
The artist's wife Maria Wilhelmina, circa 1783.
Queen Sofia Magdalena of Sweden, née Princess Sophie Magdalene of Denmark, 1782.
King Gustav III of Sweden, 1779.

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Per Krafft the Elder (16 January 1724, Arboga – 7 November 1793, Stockholm), Swedish portrait painter and the father of artists Per Krafft the Younger and Wilhelmina Krafft. Born in Arboga, he studied in Uppsala, and from 1739 he was for several years a student of portrait painter Johan Henrik Scheffel in Stockholm.  In 1745 he travelled to Copenhagen, where he came under Carl Gustaf Pilo's influence, and for the next ten years he worked for both Danish and Swedish patrons. He went to Paris in 1755, where he became a student of Chardin and, later, of his Swedish compatriot Alexander Roslin. After some years in Bayreuth, he travelled in Italy, before returning to Bayreuth, and then to Dresden and Warsaw. In 1768, after twenty-one years abroad, he returned to Stockholm. At the time, Lorens Pasch the Younger attracted most of the commissions from the court and nobility, so Krafft's portraits were mostly of the local bourgeois and scholars. Later, though, he was awarded commissions from both the king and queen, and received the title of Professor in 1773 as well as being elected to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.




2 comments:

  1. what a fabulous collection! ...the ignacy bishop boy tho...if a priest would look at me this way, i would start to feel uncomfortable

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    Replies
    1. Haha, yes! Always beware of dreamy-eyed bishops.... ; )

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