Bengt Erland Fogelberg
The sculptor who gave form to the Norse gods.
Bengt Erland Fogelberg made large marble statues of Odin, Thor and Balder in Rome. They now stand in the Nationalmuseum.
Bengt Erland Fogelberg was born in Gothenburg in 1786. His father worked as a brass founder, casting metal. Fogelberg came to Stockholm and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a pupil of Johan Tobias Sergel. He went to Paris and studied there for a time, and in the early 1820s he moved to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life.
In Rome he had his great idea. He wanted to portray the Old Norse gods in marble, with the same ideal forms as the gods of ancient Greece. This suited the times, when the Geatish Society and writers such as Esaias Tegnér and Erik Gustaf Geijer were making Old Norse history popular. His Odin was completed in 1830, and Thor and Balder some fifteen years later. The statues now stand in the main staircase of the Nationalmuseum.
Fogelberg also made several public monuments in Sweden. These include the statue of Gustav II Adolf on Gustaf Adolfs torg in Gothenburg, the statue of Birger Jarl on Riddarholmen in Stockholm and the equestrian statue of Karl XIV Johan at Slussen in Stockholm. Several of them were unveiled only around the time of his death.
Fogelberg's style is classical and austere, with calm poses and smooth surfaces. His Norse gods can be seen as Greek gods with Old Norse attributes, such as Thor's hammer. He died in Trieste in 1854 while travelling. He is regarded as one of the most important Swedish sculptors of the first half of the 19th century.