It always amazes me that, despite the number of times we have been to Stockholm, we still find things of interest that we've never been to before.This time we had a lovely day at the Thiel gallery, a place of whose very existence we had lived in ignorance until recently.
Basically it's a large house that used to belong to a wealthy industrialist who also collected art. In the way these things often go he made a lot of money quite fast and lost most of it even faster, but not before he had built a beautiful Art Nouveau house in one of the wealthiest parts of Stockholm, and bought a lot of pictures. These were all - house and pictures - acquired by the state in the mid 1920s and the house, complete with furniture and pictures, was subsequently opened to the public.
We went on the ferry which is always a fun way to travel around the city and then walked up (very much up!) to the house. The house itself is beautiful and the art is stupendous. Thiel collected mainly Nordic Art although there's a second division Gauguin and a not very good Toulouse Lautrec in there as well. But it is the pictures by Munch, Zorn, Jansson and, above all for us, Carl Larsson that were in some cases a revelation and in others just an unmitigated delight. I have to say the Larsson collection at the Thiel is infinitely superior to that which is on display at the National Gallery. The NG may of course have a number of Larsson's that aren't hung but the Thiel has a room full of them and they are all lovely.
There is a shop (see previous post re shopping for the poster and jigsaw puzzle) and a beautiful cafe overseen by a star Swedish chef (although obviously not in person.) It was just an amazing day and one we plan to repeat next time we're in the city. Meanwhile I learned two things; that I really like big landscapes and that no-one can paint snow like a Scandinavian.
A selection of photos below
Those Larssons are glorious!
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