ABSTRACT
At the end of May 1775, a young Swedish artist visited the Parc Monceau in Paris, the picturesque garden that was being laid out by playwright Louis Carrogis de Carmontelle for the then Duc de Chartres. Royal Secretary Carl Fredrik Fredenheim’s position as advisor to Gustav III on matters of art and collecting was the fruit of a purposeful career. Fredenheim’s gift - a portrait of the Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna - to Gustav III when the King visited Ekolsund in 1775, was no doubt an attempt to court royal favour. When the Royal Museum was founded as a public memorial to the late King in June 1792, Fredenheim was also appointed as the first director. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, besides the Royal Museum there was a collection of sculptures at the Academy of Fine Arts, only a few hundred metres distant.
