Viking Homelands: Stockholm Drottningholm I (9/8/2018)

Saturday, September 8, 2018

View from the stateroom with that low-lying fog

Today we must disembark the Viking Star, as our Viking Homelands journey has ended. Since the Hop On Hop Off bus did not start service until 10:00, Josefina was able to order an Uber car to take us to our hotel, Haymarket by Scandia. We will be staying one more night in Stockholm.

Hötorget/Haymarket Square with the Konserthus/
Concert Hall (1923-1926 by Ivar Tengbom
in Swedish Art Deco)

We checked in and we were able to get a room, so that everyone could stash the luggage there. Since it was still early, we walked down to the dock to catch the first boat to Drottningholm.

Rag and Bone (2008, by Laura Ford)

Vågen och Vindarna/Wave and Wind (1931,
erected 1977, by Nils Sjögren)

Stockholm City Hall

St George Slaying the Dragon on City Hall

City Hall Tower topped with the Tre Kronor/
Three Crowns, the symbol of the city

Clear view of City Hall as our boat departs

Passing islands on Lake Mälaren

An hour later we approached Drottningholm and the Queen's Palace
(1662-1682, by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder)

First a tour of the palace, at least the parts not used as the residence of the present king and queen!

Grand Staircase (by Nicodemus Tessin
the Elder in early Baroque style)

Lower North Guardroom has wall of painted tooled leather

Karl X's Gallery featuring paintings (by Johann Philip Lembke) of his
military exploit of crossing the frozen Store Baelt/Great Belt to Zealand,
completing the march of the Swedish army through Poland, up through
the Jutland of Denmark and east to Zealand to defeat Denmark

Green Salon with portraits of Catherine the Great of Russia
and Louis XVI of France (KSS)

Ehrenstrahl Drawing Room with the Carl XV cradle
(1826) used during the christenings in the royal family

Ehrenstrahl Drawing Room ceiling (1694-1696,
by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl) with Virtus, Gloria, and
Fortitude, and a "Nordic" lion representing Sweden

Hedwig Eleonora's State Bedchamber, which was
not her actual bedroom, but it was used as such
later by Louisa Ulrika and Gustav III

Green Cabinet (1747, by Carl Hårleman) with portraits of
Louisa Ulrika's Prussian family members...

...all pale with rosy cheeks and high foreheads,
including her son Karl XIII

Louisa Ulrika's Library (1760, by Jean Eric Rehn)

Off the library was a small room with a model
of the ruins of Pompei, made for Gustav III

View across an inner courtyard of
the Palace Chapel (1730)

Now we head up the Grand Staircase to the upper floor

Lantern ceiling paintings by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl

Upper North Guardroom with a faux door
painted on the right for symmetry

Upper North Guardroom ceiling by John Sylvius

Gustavian Drawing Room with a Louis XV secretaire
(1732-1736, by Johan Niclas Eckstein)

Blue Drawing Room (1777) with
a "hidden" servant door

Cupboard (1781, by Nils Petter Stenström), a gift
from silk merchant Adrian Hardt who tried
to interest Gustav III in the production of silk,
was full of samples of silk (KSS)

Chinese Drawing Room with a faux
Chinese stove (made in Russia), a gift from
Catherine the Great to her cousin, Gustav III

A bureau by Georg Haupt was a
pull-out bed for a guard or page

The bed is partially opened in this photo

Chinese Drawing Room also has this Gobelin tapestry (1779,
depicting the Greek myth of Theseus and the Bull),
a gift from Louis XVI of France upon the visit of Gustav III in 1784

Oskar II's Hall with ceiling painting by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl

Oskar II's Hall with a 1630s Mortlake tapestry
depicting the Greek myth of Hero and Leander

Generals' Room ceiling painting (1643, by Gerrit van Honthorst)
depicting the old Norse saga of Ragnar Lordbroke

Generals' Room has portraits of Queen Ulrika
Eleonora the Younger's brother, Karl XII and his generals

Queens' Room (1850s) with portraits of the queens of Europe

Hall of State (1850s, by Fredric Wilhelm Scholander)
ceiling painting

Hall of State with full-size portraits of European heads of state;
we see Napoleon III (France), Oskar I (Sweden), and Queen Victoria
(England), and the round portrait is Vittorio Emanuele II (Sardinia)

Upper South Guardroom ceiling, Fall of Phaethon
(1694, by Johan Sylvius), depicting the myth where
the son of Helios, the sun god, drives the chariot
pulling the sun across the sky, but is not strong
enough to control the horses, creating havoc until
Zeus shoots him down with a thunderbolt

Upper South Guardroom with detailed stuccowork
by Giovanni Carove and Carlo Carove

View of the gardens from the palace

Palace guard on the lake side of the palace (KSS)

Copy of statue (1615-18, by Adriaen de Vries)
of Neptune facing Lake Mälaren

All the 26 bronze sculptures by de Vries (the largest collection anywhere) in the park are replaced by modern copies. The statues were taken as booty when Swedish armies captured Prague Castle in 1648 towards the end of the Thirty Years' War. Dutchman Adriaen de Vries spent much of his career in Prague as court sculptor for Rudolf II.
Next: Stockholm Drottningholm II.