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Details
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Comfort as an idea and practice
Comfort for all?
Aim, materials and method
Theoretical starting points
Previous research
To the table! Disposition of the study
1. Carl Eric Wadenstierna and Näs Manor
Näs and country life as ideal
Comfortable everyday life
Luxury and comfort
Taste, cultivation and nature
Books, socialising and silhouettes
Family pictures
2. At the sewing table
Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm af Seulenberg
The significance of textiles
The exemplary women of the eighteenth century
Needlework, conversation and gender
The utility of luxury: Wadenstierna and the debate on luxury
Never being unoccupied
3. At the writing table
Letter writing and comfort: Women's furniture à la mode
Writing and reading: The Wadenstierna sisters and the library at Näs
'The cabinet': A room of her own for Fredrica Carleson
Letter writing: A female genre
A pictorial world full of letters
In the studies and cabinets at Näs
4. At the dressing table
French role models and complications
Dressing tables, fashion images and portraits
Criticism of dressing table culture
'Toilette kammaren': The dressing room at Näs
The dressing room and Pehr Hilleström's paintings at Näs
Toilette in a time of change
5. At the games tables
Around the games tables and billiard table at Näs
The significance of billiards during the eighteenth century
The rules of the game
Private billiards and public gambling clubs
Women who played games
Back to Näs
6. At the coffee table
Coffee drinking and coffee criticism
Intimate conversations: Coffee drinking and manorial culture
Coffee at home with the Wadenstierna family
Concluding words
Pictures and tables
Social roles
Swedish?.
The picture of comfort
Bibliography and sources
Index
List of illustrations
Colour plates
Plate 1. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg (1733-1768). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4324).
Plate 2. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Carl Eric Wadenstierna (1723-1787). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4323).
Plate 3. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Fredrica Carleson (1743-1794). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4325).
Plate 4. The main building at Näs. Photo: Udo Schröter. Wikimedia Commons.
Plate 5. Pehr Hilleström's portrait that was commissioned for Wadenstierna's Näs Manor, 2ne Fröknar Wadenstiernas portraiter - i Conversation, c. 1774. Oil on canvas, 32 × 41 cm. Private ownership.
Plate 6. Pehr Hilleström, En gumma med 2ne flickor (later called Tillrättavisningen), c. 1774. Oil on canvas, 33.5 × 49.5 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowskis. The painting belonged to Wadenstierna's Näs estate.
Plate 7. Pehr Hilleström, En tafla med 16 personer föreställande en Conversation på Drottningholm, 1779. Oil on canvas, 74.5 × 117 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMDrh 751).
Plate 8. A suite of paintings at Wadenstierna's Näs Manor tell us about everyday work with the home's textiles: Pehr Hilleström, En som stryker och en som sticker (one ironing and one knitting). Oil on canvas, 40 × 51 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowsk
Plate 9. Wadenstierna's commission for Näs also included Pehr Hilleström, Ett Fruent: spinner bomull (A woman: Spinning cotton). Oil on canvas, 51 × 40 cm. Private ownership.
Plate 10. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, La consolation de l'absence, c. 1785. Gouache, 26 × 20.5 cm. Paris Musées/Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris (J 156).
Plate 11. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg (1733-1768) and Fredrica Carleson (1743-1794). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4324)
Pehr Hilleström, En gumma med 2ne fl
Plate 12. Johan Niclas Eckstein, Wadenstierna's secretaire, signed 1773. Veneered with jacaranda, plumwood, citron wood, maple, dark poplar and amaranth (purpleheart wood). W 94.5 cm, H 106 cm, D 49.5 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Christie's.
Plate 13. Georg Haupt, secretaire completed for Wadenstierna, signed 1775. Veneered with coloured birch, maple, walnut and possibly mulberry wood. W 82 cm, H 106 cm, D 55 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Åmells.
Plate 14. François Boucher, La marchande de modes, 1746. Oil on canvas, 64 × 53 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 772). Photo: Cecilia Heisser.
Plate 15. Pehr Hilleström, Ett Fruent: som snör en flicka (A woman lacing a girl's corset). Oil on canvas, 32 × 41 cm. Private ownership. The painting was part of Wadenstierna's commission of Hilleström's works in the 1770s.
Plate 16. In the eighteenth century, Näs was home to Pehr Hilleström's painting Interiör med ung dam och gumma som spår i kaffesump (Interior with young lady and old woman reading coffee grounds), from c. 1775. Oil on canvas, 38.5 × 30 cm. Private ownersh
Plate 17. Pehr Hilleström, Ett fruentimmer sitter och läser, kammarjungfrun kommer med Thé (A woman sits reading, the lady's maid brings tea), 1775. Oil on canvas, 53 × 62 cm. Nordiska museet, Stockholm (NM.0177655*1).
Plate 18. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Lady Drinking Tea, c. 1780. Gouache on paper, 28 × 21.9 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Charles E. Dunlap (1956.248).
Plate 19. Cup from Wadenstierna's armorial tableware. Polychrome decoration with the cross of the Royal Order of the Polar Star hanging around the coat of arms after Wadenstierna was awarded the distinction in 1767. Private ownership.
Plate 20. Georg Haupt, Wadenstierna's tea table, 1775. L 80 cm, W 57.5 cm, H 75 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowskis.
Images
1. Gustaf Lundberg (attrib.), Unknown Woman. Pastel, 53 × 43 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 2306).
2. Louis Carrogis (Carmontelle), Mr de Mornay, Gouverneur de St Cloud, dessiné d'après nature dans la posture habituelle de sa siesta. Watercolour and gouache, 27.1 × 19 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Sotheby's.
3. François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, 1756. Oil on canvas, 201 × 157 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich (HUW 18). Wikimedia Commons.
4. Bernard Picart, Mode: aux colonnes d'Hercules avec Priv. du Roy. Engraving, 10.3 × 6.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
5. Nicolas Dupin after Pierre-Thomas Le Clerc, Femme en deshabillé du matin couchée négligemment sur un Sopha, et jouant avec son chien. From Galerie des modes et costumes français, Paris, 1778.
6. Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle d'Armagnac en robe de chambre, 1695. Découpure, engraving and textile, 27.31 × 20.32 cm. Minneapolis Museum of Art, the Minnich Collection, Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund, 1966 (66.25.5).
7. Jean-François de Troy, Lecture de Molière, c. 1728. Oil on canvas, 74 × 93 cm. Private ownership.
8-10. At the Tea Table, 30.5 × 23 cm
Henriette von Knebel, 24.6 × 17 cm
Friederike Louise, princesse of Hessen-Darmstadt, c. 1783, 25.6 × 17.8 cm. Ink on paper. From Anne Gabrisch, Schattenbilder der Goethezeit, Leipzig, 1966.
11. One of five overdoor decorations in the entrance hall at Näs, from about 1775. Unknown artist, oil on canvas. Private ownership.
12. View of Näs Manor, from Gunnar Mascoll Silfverstolpe, 'Näs i Roslagen. En gustaviansk herrgård', Svenska hem i ord och bilder, no. 28, 1940, pp. 1-8.
13. Map of Näs Manor, 1748-9 (detail). From the Swedish Land Survey (A83-18:1). Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
14. Floor Plan for a New House at Näs Manor in Roslagen, early 1770s. Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
15. Tiled stove in the dining room at Näs, c. 1775.
16. Enfilade with the reception rooms at Näs with the bedchamber in the foreground. Photo: Åke Grundström, 1959, Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
17. Drawing room chairs from Näs, about 1780. Photo: Bukowskis.
18-19. Wadenstierna's tureen from the Marieberg factory in Stockholm, marked 27/10 (17)63 and with the painter's signature of Erik Aspegren. The three small leaves inside the bottom of the bowl hide a few imperfections in the glaze. The leaves are a remin
20. One of Johan Philip Korn's paintings from Näs. Oil on panel, 18 × 25 cm. Private ownership.
21. Part of the collection of silhouette portraits from Näs: Fredrica Aurora Taube (1753-1806) (SPA 1960:243), 1789
Lars Gabriel Silfverstolpe (1773-1832) (SPA 1960:266), 1788
Lars August Mannerheim (1749-1835) (SPA 1960:259), 1792. Photo: Archives of t
22. Pehr Hörberg, Evening with the Family at de Geers Finspång, 1798. Pen and ink wash on paper, 20.5 × 32.5 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMH 516/1884).
23. Silhouette Portraits of Sophia Wadenstierna and Lars August Mannerheim, 1780s. Possibly by Johan Ludvig Tenler. Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
24-25. Carl Carlsson Enhörning, Carl Eric Wadenstierna och Fredrica Carleson, 1770s. Wax relief (SPA 1942:332). Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
26. Unknown artist, portrait miniatures of Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Comfort as an idea and practice
Comfort for all?
Aim, materials and method
Theoretical starting points
Previous research
To the table! Disposition of the study
1. Carl Eric Wadenstierna and Näs Manor
Näs and country life as ideal
Comfortable everyday life
Luxury and comfort
Taste, cultivation and nature
Books, socialising and silhouettes
Family pictures
2. At the sewing table
Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm af Seulenberg
The significance of textiles
The exemplary women of the eighteenth century
Needlework, conversation and gender
The utility of luxury: Wadenstierna and the debate on luxury
Never being unoccupied
3. At the writing table
Letter writing and comfort: Women's furniture à la mode
Writing and reading: The Wadenstierna sisters and the library at Näs
'The cabinet': A room of her own for Fredrica Carleson
Letter writing: A female genre
A pictorial world full of letters
In the studies and cabinets at Näs
4. At the dressing table
French role models and complications
Dressing tables, fashion images and portraits
Criticism of dressing table culture
'Toilette kammaren': The dressing room at Näs
The dressing room and Pehr Hilleström's paintings at Näs
Toilette in a time of change
5. At the games tables
Around the games tables and billiard table at Näs
The significance of billiards during the eighteenth century
The rules of the game
Private billiards and public gambling clubs
Women who played games
Back to Näs
6. At the coffee table
Coffee drinking and coffee criticism
Intimate conversations: Coffee drinking and manorial culture
Coffee at home with the Wadenstierna family
Concluding words
Pictures and tables
Social roles
Swedish?.
The picture of comfort
Bibliography and sources
Index
List of illustrations
Colour plates
Plate 1. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg (1733-1768). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4324).
Plate 2. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Carl Eric Wadenstierna (1723-1787). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4323).
Plate 3. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Fredrica Carleson (1743-1794). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4325).
Plate 4. The main building at Näs. Photo: Udo Schröter. Wikimedia Commons.
Plate 5. Pehr Hilleström's portrait that was commissioned for Wadenstierna's Näs Manor, 2ne Fröknar Wadenstiernas portraiter - i Conversation, c. 1774. Oil on canvas, 32 × 41 cm. Private ownership.
Plate 6. Pehr Hilleström, En gumma med 2ne flickor (later called Tillrättavisningen), c. 1774. Oil on canvas, 33.5 × 49.5 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowskis. The painting belonged to Wadenstierna's Näs estate.
Plate 7. Pehr Hilleström, En tafla med 16 personer föreställande en Conversation på Drottningholm, 1779. Oil on canvas, 74.5 × 117 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMDrh 751).
Plate 8. A suite of paintings at Wadenstierna's Näs Manor tell us about everyday work with the home's textiles: Pehr Hilleström, En som stryker och en som sticker (one ironing and one knitting). Oil on canvas, 40 × 51 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowsk
Plate 9. Wadenstierna's commission for Näs also included Pehr Hilleström, Ett Fruent: spinner bomull (A woman: Spinning cotton). Oil on canvas, 51 × 40 cm. Private ownership.
Plate 10. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, La consolation de l'absence, c. 1785. Gouache, 26 × 20.5 cm. Paris Musées/Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris (J 156).
Plate 11. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg (1733-1768) and Fredrica Carleson (1743-1794). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, 8.5 × 6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 4324)
Pehr Hilleström, En gumma med 2ne fl
Plate 12. Johan Niclas Eckstein, Wadenstierna's secretaire, signed 1773. Veneered with jacaranda, plumwood, citron wood, maple, dark poplar and amaranth (purpleheart wood). W 94.5 cm, H 106 cm, D 49.5 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Christie's.
Plate 13. Georg Haupt, secretaire completed for Wadenstierna, signed 1775. Veneered with coloured birch, maple, walnut and possibly mulberry wood. W 82 cm, H 106 cm, D 55 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Åmells.
Plate 14. François Boucher, La marchande de modes, 1746. Oil on canvas, 64 × 53 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 772). Photo: Cecilia Heisser.
Plate 15. Pehr Hilleström, Ett Fruent: som snör en flicka (A woman lacing a girl's corset). Oil on canvas, 32 × 41 cm. Private ownership. The painting was part of Wadenstierna's commission of Hilleström's works in the 1770s.
Plate 16. In the eighteenth century, Näs was home to Pehr Hilleström's painting Interiör med ung dam och gumma som spår i kaffesump (Interior with young lady and old woman reading coffee grounds), from c. 1775. Oil on canvas, 38.5 × 30 cm. Private ownersh
Plate 17. Pehr Hilleström, Ett fruentimmer sitter och läser, kammarjungfrun kommer med Thé (A woman sits reading, the lady's maid brings tea), 1775. Oil on canvas, 53 × 62 cm. Nordiska museet, Stockholm (NM.0177655*1).
Plate 18. Niclas Lafrensen the Younger, Lady Drinking Tea, c. 1780. Gouache on paper, 28 × 21.9 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Charles E. Dunlap (1956.248).
Plate 19. Cup from Wadenstierna's armorial tableware. Polychrome decoration with the cross of the Royal Order of the Polar Star hanging around the coat of arms after Wadenstierna was awarded the distinction in 1767. Private ownership.
Plate 20. Georg Haupt, Wadenstierna's tea table, 1775. L 80 cm, W 57.5 cm, H 75 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Bukowskis.
Images
1. Gustaf Lundberg (attrib.), Unknown Woman. Pastel, 53 × 43 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMGrh 2306).
2. Louis Carrogis (Carmontelle), Mr de Mornay, Gouverneur de St Cloud, dessiné d'après nature dans la posture habituelle de sa siesta. Watercolour and gouache, 27.1 × 19 cm. Private ownership. Photo: Sotheby's.
3. François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, 1756. Oil on canvas, 201 × 157 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich (HUW 18). Wikimedia Commons.
4. Bernard Picart, Mode: aux colonnes d'Hercules avec Priv. du Roy. Engraving, 10.3 × 6.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
5. Nicolas Dupin after Pierre-Thomas Le Clerc, Femme en deshabillé du matin couchée négligemment sur un Sopha, et jouant avec son chien. From Galerie des modes et costumes français, Paris, 1778.
6. Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle d'Armagnac en robe de chambre, 1695. Découpure, engraving and textile, 27.31 × 20.32 cm. Minneapolis Museum of Art, the Minnich Collection, Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund, 1966 (66.25.5).
7. Jean-François de Troy, Lecture de Molière, c. 1728. Oil on canvas, 74 × 93 cm. Private ownership.
8-10. At the Tea Table, 30.5 × 23 cm
Henriette von Knebel, 24.6 × 17 cm
Friederike Louise, princesse of Hessen-Darmstadt, c. 1783, 25.6 × 17.8 cm. Ink on paper. From Anne Gabrisch, Schattenbilder der Goethezeit, Leipzig, 1966.
11. One of five overdoor decorations in the entrance hall at Näs, from about 1775. Unknown artist, oil on canvas. Private ownership.
12. View of Näs Manor, from Gunnar Mascoll Silfverstolpe, 'Näs i Roslagen. En gustaviansk herrgård', Svenska hem i ord och bilder, no. 28, 1940, pp. 1-8.
13. Map of Näs Manor, 1748-9 (detail). From the Swedish Land Survey (A83-18:1). Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
14. Floor Plan for a New House at Näs Manor in Roslagen, early 1770s. Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
15. Tiled stove in the dining room at Näs, c. 1775.
16. Enfilade with the reception rooms at Näs with the bedchamber in the foreground. Photo: Åke Grundström, 1959, Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
17. Drawing room chairs from Näs, about 1780. Photo: Bukowskis.
18-19. Wadenstierna's tureen from the Marieberg factory in Stockholm, marked 27/10 (17)63 and with the painter's signature of Erik Aspegren. The three small leaves inside the bottom of the bowl hide a few imperfections in the glaze. The leaves are a remin
20. One of Johan Philip Korn's paintings from Näs. Oil on panel, 18 × 25 cm. Private ownership.
21. Part of the collection of silhouette portraits from Näs: Fredrica Aurora Taube (1753-1806) (SPA 1960:243), 1789
Lars Gabriel Silfverstolpe (1773-1832) (SPA 1960:266), 1788
Lars August Mannerheim (1749-1835) (SPA 1960:259), 1792. Photo: Archives of t
22. Pehr Hörberg, Evening with the Family at de Geers Finspång, 1798. Pen and ink wash on paper, 20.5 × 32.5 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMH 516/1884).
23. Silhouette Portraits of Sophia Wadenstierna and Lars August Mannerheim, 1780s. Possibly by Johan Ludvig Tenler. Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
24-25. Carl Carlsson Enhörning, Carl Eric Wadenstierna och Fredrica Carleson, 1770s. Wax relief (SPA 1942:332). Photo: Archives of the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.
26. Unknown artist, portrait miniatures of Jacobina Sophia Psilanderhielm von Seulenberg.