Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde to display never-before-seen art and fine objects

Each year, the mansion and art museum Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, in central Stockholm, sees over 120,000 visitors stream through its doors. Now, as the museum prepares for a year-long highlights exhibition, it is shifting its focus to foreign travellers who may be experiencing Swedish art for the first time.

By Xander Brett

On Djurgården island in central Stockholm, looking across to Beckholmen and the Italian embassy, there sits a yellow-fronted museum. This was the purpose-built home of Prince Eugen, Duke of Närke, and the youngest son of Oscar II, from 1905 to his death in 1947. Prince Eugen was a prolific collector and painter, studying in Paris at the end of the 19th century. Housing a lifetime’s careful accumulation, his mansion – known as Waldemarsudde – was opened to the public after his death, and is today reputed as one of the Swedish capital’s cultural gems.

This year, that status will be reinforced with the unveiling of the new exhibition The Prince’s Well-Known and Unknown Treasures: Art and Fine Objects from the Waldemarsudde Collections. Open from 22 April 2023 to 17 March 2024, the exhibition will showcase Prince Eugen’s own art and applied art, as well as his private collection of works.

Waldemarsudde’s Head of Communications, Cecilia Dalborg, says the exhibition will be a chance to introduce foreign guests both to the museum, and to Swedish art more widely; Prince Eugen’s collection includes masterpieces from Swedish icons Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn, along with other major Nordic artists, including Edvard Munch.

In the prince’s private apartments, which are built around a delicate, light-walled salon flooded with sunlight, a concurrent exhibition, running from 4 March to 20 August 2023, will take place in the adjoining purpose-built gallery. Women Pioneers: Visionary Landscapes will highlight the work of evocative landscape-painter pioneers Ester Almqvist, Anna Boberg, Ellen Trotzig and Charlotte Wahlström.

Museum Director Karin Sidén emphasises that Prince Eugen was one of the country’s finest artists. “He was known for his landscapes, monumental paintings and frescoes and they still adorn the Royal Opera House, the Royal Theatre and Stockholm City Hall,” she explains. Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde is one of Sweden’s most popular museums, and its full-throttle upcoming season of art will platform Prince Eugen’s creativity, bringing the cultural gem of Stockholm to the attention of international visitors like never before. www.waldemarsudde.se

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