Swedish King Gustav III’s Collection of Antiquities

Gustav III´s Collection of Antiquities, interior, The Royal Palace.

Another reminder of the importance of private collecting for the establishment of our great museums and promoting public interest in the classical past. This collection constitutes an important part in the original core of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden. Acquired at the end of the 18th century, the views on restoration that it expresses soon contributed to make the collection unmodern. It has never been the object of exhaustive study. The material is now being published, the first volume in a projected series of three, appeared in 1998: A-M. Leander Touati, Ancient sculptures in the Royal Museum. The eighteenth-century collection in Stockholm, vol. I, 1998. Among the 180 objects that remains to be published, about 150 were bought from Francesco Piranesi in Rome and represent the remaining part of his father’s, Giovanni Battista’s marble business. Another 33 pieces stem from earlier Swedish Royal collecting, mainly that of Queen Christina and Queen Lovisa Ulrika. The objects cover a wide spectrum of ancient Roman genres: decorated architectural fragments, funerary alters, sarcophagi, urns, wellheads, candelabra, portrait busts as well as small and full sized sculpture in the round. The pieces are studied in the light of their contribution to Roman art history as well as in that of the early Modern period.