"En Minerva för vår Nord" : Lovisa Ulrika som samlare, uppdragsgivare och byggherre : [queen Lovisa Ulrika, her collections and commissions of art and architecture]

Abstract: Lovisa Ulrika's activities within the fields of art and architecture comprised extensive collectingand interior decoration, buildings and gardens at the Royal Palaces of Drottningholm, Svartsjö andFredrikshov. These are described in some detail in this study, but the main purpose is to establishher intentions and how she perceived her role as a builder, collector and patron of the arts. TheRoyal Palaces, interiors and gardens as settings for the private and public life of the Royal Familyare also discussed, as are the realization of the various projects as a part of life at court.Though she never seems to have intended making her collections public, even in the eighteenth-century sense of the word, Lovisa Ulrika clearly had some sympathy with the contemporary idea that princely collections ought to be useful to a wider audience, and access was given to scholars and students.In 1744, the reigning King Fredrik I transferred the fief of Drottningholm on Lovisa Ulrika,and the estate remained the location for her and her husband's most ambitious building projects.As in other royal and princely palaces of the period, older interiors and objects were used to implylineage, traditions and continuity Most important of the additions Lovisa Ulrika made to the palaceare the museum rooms, which together with the collections they housed were meant to be monuments to her memory. In the hunting enclosure the Royal Couple built the ensemble of Chinese pavilions known as Kina slott, and not far away they founded the miniature town of Canton.Lovisa Ulrika saw neither experienced advisers nor professional architects as absolute authorities, but placed her own judgment above their expert opinions. This point of view is evidently typical of the absolute ruler. Her commissions show traits that can be traced to her personal taste, which was influenced by the buildings, interiors and gardens of the Prussian Royal Family. Nevertheless, she left little mark on the general trend of Swedish eighteenth-century architecture, which was shaped by the architects appointed by the estates.Leading politicians encouraged Lovisa Ulrika's interest in collecting and literature in the hope that they would divert her attention from the political sphere. These hopes proved to be vain.Indeed Lovisa Ulrika, like many rulers, used art and architecture as a means to a political end.