Walking amongst the antique - views of Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities, by Pehr Hilleström, circa 1795-96

The Gallery of the Muses of the Royal Museum, the Royal Palace, Stockholm.

Gustav III was almost forty when he made "le grand tour", a journey usually made by gentlemen - and occasionally kings - who had only recently attained their majority. His trip lasted from September 1783 to August 1784, approximately half of which time was spent in Italy. Even though he travelled incognito as the Count of Haga, it was well understood that the Swedish King would be shopping, that he was a prospective buyer of marble sculptures and art objects. 

On New Year's Day in 1784, the king and his entourage were shown the collection of ancient sculptures in the Vatican, Museo Pio Clementino; their guide was no less than Pope Pius VI himself. The visit to the papal Gallery of Muses was the inspiration for Gustav's acquisitions of ancient statues and their later exhibition after his death in 1792. 

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 The Inner Gallery of the Royal Museum, the Royal Palace, Stockholm.

The purveyors of antiquities in Italy at the time were usually far from reluctant to pass off over-restored and cobbled-together pieces to their eager clientele. If the Swedish king was on the hunt for an Apollo or a particular muse, for example, one would be found - one way or another. The dealers and their "restorers" were adept at adding an identifying attribute to an existing statute, piecing together a whole sculpture from unrelated parts, and were very skillful in disguising breaks and joins and additions.

The resulting collection was intended for the king's planned palace in Haga, but when the work - a few hundred objects, both sculptures and vases - arrived in Stockholm, it was first installed in the state rooms of Stockholm's royal palace. Sweden had previously had a dearth of classical sculpture, and limited access to the collection was granted to some artists and upper-class amateurs.

I wasn't as lucky as I was with the other images and, sadly, was unable to find a larger image of this painting from which to extract further details.

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There are two other versions of Hilleström's view of the Inner Gallery; the viewpoint is the same, but the figures are positioned differently.

When Gustav III died in March of 1792, two weeks following an assassination attempt, it was only three months later that the government decided to establish a museum in the palace, dedicated to antiquities and in tribute to the dead king "for his efforts as a protector of art in his lifetime." The northeast palace wing was designated as the location for the new museum; the collection is still displayed there today. It was one of northern Europe's first art museums, and named "the Royal Museum," though it was actually public property belonging to the Swedish State.

As the brushwork is much looser - sketchier -  it's possible that the two alternate version are preparatory studies.

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The second alternate version pictures a coffered ceiling vault. Perhaps planned, the coffering was never carried out; was Hilleström getting ahead of himself...?

During the nineteenth century, though, many changes occurred. First, modern sculpture was included in the displayed work. And around 1840 the smaller Inner Gallery began to be used for exhibiting oil paintings and the décor was changed. As the full art collection grew it was decided to transfer the collection to the new National Museum. The former rooms of the Royal Museum were taken over by the Royal Library and then, until 1906, the Royal Armory collection.

In this third variation, the foreground figures are of a noticeably larger proportion.

Finally, in the 1950s, the decision was made to return Gustav III's collection of antiquities to their original home, and in 1958 the museum opened its doors to the public, now under the name Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities. The renovation carried out in the 1950s related mainly to the large gallery and the Gallery of the Muses, not the entire museum. But in 1992, in conjunction with the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the museum's inauguration, a full restoration of the original Royal Museum was carried out.

The objects in the collection, with the exception of their additions, are of classical origin and most of the larger statues are fairly free Roman interpretations of Greek models. And as is common practice with similar historical sculpture collections, the additions and restorations made during the eighteenth century have not been removed.

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Pehr Hilleström (18 November 1732, Väddö  – 13 August 1816, Stockholm), Swedish artist who also served as a professor and director at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He first studied with the landscape artist Johan Philip Korn, and then received training at the Royal Academy from artist Guillaume Taraval and architect Jean Eric Rehn. Between 1757 and 1758, he studied abroad, traveling to Paris, Belgium, and The Netherlands. In 1773, he became a member of the board of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, in 1805 he received the post of vice-chancellor of the academy, and in 1810 he became its director. He was the father of the artist Carl Petter Hilleström (1760–1812), and his descendants included the author and museum curator, Gustaf Hilleström.