Arts and antiques

Wherever you go in Sweden you can’t fail to notice the general interest in art and antiques. You are hard-pressed to find a Swedish home that does not have some original contemporary art or some antique items.

Stockholm probably has more art galleries, antique stores and auction houses than any other capital its size. The Swedish monthly magazine Antik & Auktion has more readers than any other comparable publication in the world, attesting to a keen and knowledgeable interest in art and antiques in the country.

Within easy walking distance of Kungsträdgården in Stockholm you find the showrooms of seven auction houses. Stockholms Auktionsverk, established in 1674, is the world’s oldest auction house. Exceptional paintings, antiques, textiles, silver, jewelry, glass and ceramics are not sold at the weekly stadsauktion, but reserved for the “Stora Kvalitets” auctions held twice a year, or siphoned off to specialized auctions for example for modern art, weapons, toys, books or Swedish art glass. Bukowskis and Crafoord hold bi-annual and other auctions where you will find some of the choicest pieces.

All around in the countryside local auctions are held by itinerant auctioneers advertising in the local papers. Here you can make finds, although popular antiques like painted cupboards and clocks, and floral coffee cups tend to be expensive because they are so much in demand. At these auctions you do not have the catalogues and the documentation provided by the city auctions and it is easy to get carried away in the heat of the moment and make higher bids than you had planned to do.

Auctions are fun but for the true cream of the crop you have to seek out one of the many antiques stores. Here it is harder to find bargains but for North Americans shopping with a strong dollar, prices may be comparably favourable. Above all you have a choice, and a level of quality that is rare on this side of the Atlantic. Many Swedish dealers also sell antiques on eBay.

When Jane Fredlund, one of Sweden’s authorities on painted traditional furniture visited the USA, she was disappointed to find such few pieces of original Swedish furniture. The immigrants evidently brought little with them besides perhaps a bridal chest containing all their belongings. A few Swedish antiques may have reached and still reach North American stores through Swedish-Americans but most of the antiques, or reproductions, have come over in recent times in large containers.

Several antiques stores in North America carry Swedish 19th century pine furniture in the form of beds, benches, tables, trunks, armoirs, china cupboards, plate racks and Mora Clocks. The more expensive pieces will have decorative painting. Even stores that do not specialize in Scandinavian antiques will often carry scales, kitchen-ware, handblown glass, porcelain and other decorative items with a Swedish pedigree.

The term antique officially applies only to items that are older than one hundred years but today fifty years is often the accepted rule and there are plenty of even younger “antiques” and collectibles of all kinds around. In Sweden the hundred year rule is still strictly applied to furniture, in that fur-niture that is older than 100 years must be reported to the Central Board of National Antiquities - Riksantikvarieämbetet before being exported. This authority, however, very seldom stops anything from leaving the country, unless it is considered to be of special “national interest”.Swedish 18th century silver has for a long time had a strong following abroad. All Swedish silver (and gold and platinum) carries the characteristic three crown stamp as well as markings to identify the year it was manufactured (see below where e.g. K3=1816), and most often also the silversmith (that dealers can identify through a book that lists all insignia). The silver teapot above was sold at an auction for 35 000 kronor, but if it had been a coffee pot, and signed by a master like Pehr Zethelius, it would have fetched five times more.

Swedish tin utensils have been control stamped since 1694, while brass and copper has only been stamped by the makers. On the right the control and other tin stamps that accompanied the year marking. Swedish painted furniture or allmoge möbler have become very popular all over the world and is what most often comes to mind when people think of old Swedish furniture. The chest of drawers above was painted in 1838 (and fetched 35 000 kronor at an auction). The bare simple elegance and the beauty of this rough “rosemaling” style flourished around the turn of the century when ninety percent of the population of Sweden lived in the country. Different models of furniture and cut, carved and painted decoration evolved in different parts of the country and the best examples were made between 1770 and 1870. Today there is a lot of new production in different dalmålning styles and many Swedes regret that they stripped the paint off old furniture when it was more fashionable with plain pine furniture.

The Gustavian style essentially emerged as a result of attempts by Swedish artisans to copy Louis XVI furniture without having the French pieces in front of them. So Gustavian furniture is less ornate, but certainly just as elegant. The proportions are beautiful, and the simple lines of the furniture work well in contemporary spaces. Swedish pieces nowadays often sell for more than the French furniture. You can still find plenty of bargains from the Gustavian period (that comprises the reigns of Gustaf III 1717-92 and his son Gustav IV Adolf 1792-1809) but when it comes to chests of drawers by Georg Haupt (1741-84) you have to pay millions for the privilege of owning them. Luckily you can still afford the Karl Johan (1810-40) furniture style.

Swedish clock works were manufactured at Stjärnsund in Dalarna from around 1700, and later became one of the province’s most popular exports with the clock work made in Mora and the case by a local carpenter. Before the 1780-1840 heyday of the curved rococo Mora clocks, the cases were straight or integrated (right) into cupboards.

Sweden used to be one of the best places in the world to find arte noveau glass by Gallé, Daum and other masters, simp-ly because the prices were so low. Now prices have caught up and Swedish art glass like the goblet (left, á SEK 210 000) by Orrefors artist Simon Gate is internationally appreciated.

Trendy Metropolitan Home magazine once wrote that “Gustavsberg’s pottery, unlike its American equivalents (a Grueby vase can bring up to $10 000), is still selling in the low three figures.” You can still find vases like the Josef Ekberg vase, masterpieces from Rörstrand and Höganäs pottery at low prices. Here are some of the marks to look for:
Paintings by Carl Larsson, Anders Zorn and nature painter Bruno Liljefors have always fetched high prices, but during the last few years they have become exorbitant. Paintings by author August Strindberg, Carl Fredrik Hill, Dardel and even a modern artist like Olle Baertling are in the same league. Perennial favourites like John Bauer, Gustaf Fjaestad, Olof Hermelin, Olle Hjärtberg, Johan Krouthén, Lindorm Liljefors, Helmer Osslund, Anshelm Schultzberg, Johan Tirén and Alfred Wahlberg are still in the realm of consideration but you may just want to go for a print. Many Swedish-Americans have etchings by the cosmopolitan Anders Zorn without realizing how valuable they are. Many have also saved old Christmas cards and they are definitely worth looking through, because the about 3 000 original (not offset re-printed) Jenny Nyström christmas cards fetch high prices at regular postcard auctions not only in Sweden, but also for instance in England. Serious art critics have always frowned on her art, but today Jenny Nyström’s paintings command high prices and new respect.