Gustaf Lundberg
Master of pastel in Sweden's Age of Liberty.
Gustaf Lundberg learned pastel in Paris and became Sweden's leading portrait painter. His portraits of the court and the bourgeoisie are soft and lifelike.
Gustaf Lundberg was born in Stockholm in 1695. He lost his parents early and grew up with relatives. He received his first training from the court painter David von Krafft. In 1717 he travelled to Paris to continue his studies, and he remained in France for almost thirty years.
In Paris he studied with some of the leading portrait painters of the day. Decisive was his encounter with the Venetian pastellist Rosalba Carriera, who visited Paris in 1720–21 and made pastel the height of fashion. Lundberg took up the technique and became one of its most skilled practitioners. He portrayed the French aristocracy and in 1741 became a member of the Royal Academy in Paris. His reception piece was a portrait of the painter François Boucher, which is now in the Louvre.
In 1745 he returned to Sweden and became court painter. He portrayed King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika, their children, among them the young Gustav III, and a long line of people from the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Pastel suited the soft, powdered surfaces of Rococo fashion. The skin acquires a velvety sheen, and the faces are friendly and lifelike. He worked quickly and was much in demand. He also taught at the new Academy of Art in Stockholm.
Lundberg died in Stockholm in 1786, aged over ninety. He is regarded as the foremost Swedish portrait painter of the Age of Liberty, and his pastels give us a vivid picture of the people of 18th-century Sweden. Many are now in the Nationalmuseum and in the Swedish National Portrait Gallery at Gripsholm Castle.