Alexander Roslin
The Swede who portrayed Europe's upper classes.
Alexander Roslin from Malmö made his career in Paris and painted royalty all over Europe, among them Gustav III. He is famous for his rendering of fabrics.
Alexander Roslin was born in Malmö in 1718. His father was a physician. Roslin showed talent early and was apprenticed to the portrait painter Georg Engelhard Schröder in Stockholm. As a young man he left Sweden and never lived there again. He worked first at the court of Bayreuth in Germany and then travelled to Italy, where he painted in Venice, Florence and Parma, among other places.
In 1752 he arrived in Paris, then the artistic capital of Europe. The very next year he became a member of the French Academy. He soon became one of the most sought-after portrait painters in the city and painted aristocrats, ministers and royalty. During a visit to Sweden in 1774–75 he painted Carl Linnaeus, among others. The portrait belongs to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He also spent a few years in St Petersburg and portrayed the Empress Catherine II.
Roslin was a master at rendering materials. Silk, velvet, lace and fur become almost tangible in his paintings. The faces are calm and dignified, often with a gentle sheen. His most famous work is The Lady with the Veil (1768) in the Nationalmuseum. The sitter is his wife, who hides half her face behind a black veil and smiles at the viewer. The Nationalmuseum also owns his portrait of Gustav III and his brothers from 1771.
In 1759 Roslin married the French pastellist Marie-Suzanne Giroust. The marriage met with opposition because he was a Protestant and she a Catholic. She herself became a member of the Academy but died in 1772. They had several children. Roslin lived in Paris until his death in 1793, during the most violent years of the Revolution.
Roslin is the Swedish artist who made the greatest international career in the 18th century. His works are now in museums all over Europe, including the Louvre and Versailles. In Sweden he is the symbol of the elegance and refinement that marked the Gustavian era.