Nationalmuseum, six centuries by the water

A palace of art on the water

Stand on the quay at Södra Blasieholmshamnen and you have one of Stockholm’s great views, with the water of Strömmen in front of you and the Royal Palace on the far side. Behind you rises Nationalmuseum, Sweden’s museum of art and design, and one of the best-preserved 19th-century museum buildings in Europe.

Its collections hold some 700,000 objects: painting, sculpture, drawings and prints from the 16th century to the early 20th, and applied art and design up to the present day. More than 5,000 of them are on show, from Rembrandt and Goya to Carl Larsson and Hanna Pauli.

It also suits a short stay very well. The museum lies in the heart of the city, a few minutes’ walk from the Grand Hôtel, and you can walk in, have lunch, see the sculptures and browse the shop without buying a ticket at all.

From royal collections to a national museum

The collections began with royal and aristocratic taste. In the 18th century the diplomat Carl Gustaf Tessin collected art during his years as Sweden’s ambassador to France, including some 2,000 master drawings. Queen Lovisa Ulrika built up a great collection of her own, and paid dearly for it. By 1777 her debts had become too much, and her son Gustav III settled them when she gave up her collections and Drottningholm Palace. The Royal Museum was founded in 1792.

For its present home, the state turned to the German architect Friedrich August Stüler, who was then building the Neues Museum in Berlin. He became head architect in 1847, and his design looks to the northern Italian Renaissance, while the Swedish architect Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander took charge of the interiors. Nationalmuseum opened to the public on 15 June 1866.

The windows were a marvel. The largest panes measured 170 by 200 centimetres, made in a factory in Aachen, at a time when window glass in Swedish homes rarely exceeded 45 centimetres. Comfort took longer. The galleries were not heated at first, so visitors simply kept their coats on, the museum had no toilets until 1915, and electricity arrived only in 1931.

In 2013 the museum closed for its first full renovation, led by the architects Gert Wingårdh, Josefin Larsson and Erik Wikerstål. King Carl XVI Gustaf reopened it on 13 October 2018. Blocked windows and ceiling lanterns once again let in daylight and views of the city, the original colours returned to the walls, and the museum can now show almost three times as many works.

A spiral staircase among the galleries · Photo: Ylva Hedman

The painting that came home

The great staircase is the heart of the house, and the best story in it belongs to Carl Larsson. Today he is loved for his watercolours of family life, but here he worked on a monumental scale. His murals for the museum were begun in the 1890s, and among them is Gustav Vasa’s entry into Stockholm in 1523.

Facing it hangs Midwinter Sacrifice, or Midvinterblot, almost 90 square metres of Norse myth showing the sacrifice of King Domalde. It was meant to be the last work in the suite. Instead it set off a debate that went all the way up to government level, and in 1915 it was rejected.

Carl Larsson, Midwinter Sacrifice, 1915 · Photo: Ylva Hedman

For decades the painting wandered. In 1987 it was sold at auction to a Japanese collector, and many assumed that Sweden had lost it for good. Then, in 1992, its owner lent it to the museum for a major Carl Larsson exhibition, and opinion turned. In 1997, with help from private donors and foundations, Nationalmuseum bought the work, and today it hangs on the wall Larsson intended.

Six centuries, room by room

The collections follow a timeline through the building, so you move through the centuries in order, with art, applied art and design side by side. Look out for Rembrandt’s The Kitchen Maid, Judith Leyster’s Boy Playing the Flute and Alexander Roslin’s The Lady with the Veil, and spend some time with the French 18th-century paintings, regarded as one of the finest such collections in the world. The rooms from the 1920s onwards bring you up to date with Swedish glass, furniture and design.

Do not miss the Treasury. Nationalmuseum has the world’s largest collection of miniature paintings, some 5,700 works, and more than 600 are on display here alongside jewellery, boxes and pocket watches. A portrait miniature could be a calling card or a lover’s gift, carried close to the heart. Among them is Nicholas Hilliard’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.

Two of the museum’s nicest spaces are free. The Sculpture Courtyard opens up like an Italian piazza, where the Norse gods Thor, Odin and Balder share the room with 19th-century worthies. The Design Depot, on the corridor between the shop and the restaurant, tells the story of ceramics in more than 1,200 objects, with comfortable chairs if you want to sit down for a while.

A summer dream in the Swedish winter

Until 7 February 2027, To the Sea! The beach as borderland and summer dream fills the upper floor with around 200 paintings, photographs, posters and historical swimwear. I went up the great staircase to see it in early November. It follows the rise of the seaside holiday from about 1870 to the mid-20th century, from Normandy to Skagen and the Swedish west coast, with works by Claude Monet, Anders Zorn, Peder Severin Krøyer, Sigrid Hjertén, Georgia O’Keeffe and Robert Capa. Loans have come from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay and The National Gallery in London.

Monet’s Gare Saint-Lazare of 1877 in the Normandy room · Photo: Ylva Hedman

For a travel company, this show is a particular pleasure, because it is really a history of the holiday itself. The story begins in the 18th century, when the sea stopped being seen as ugly and hostile, and the British doctor Richard Russell introduced drinking and bathing cures in Brighton. The railway then did the rest. When it reached Normandy in the mid-19th century, fishing villages filled with boarding houses, bathing huts, hotels and casinos.

The posters tell that story best, with their promises of sea bathing and reduced fares. Sweden has its own chapter. The Annual Leave Act of 1938 gave employees the right to 12 days’ holiday, and the coast reflected the country’s social divides: Falsterbo and Saltsjöbaden took on an upper-class character, while Årsta Havsbad was built so that workers could swim and relax in beautiful surroundings.

Clay, and what comes next

Until 10 January 2027, Wilhelm Kåge & Shōji Hamada. Ceramics Across Borders brings together two masters, one Swedish and one Japanese, who both wanted beautiful everyday objects to be within everyone’s reach. Kåge designed for the Gustavsberg porcelain factory, Hamada ran his own workshop and became a Living National Treasure, and in 1956 Kåge spent almost two weeks in Japan as his guest.

Looking ahead, the design exhibition Women as Technology opens in February 2027, followed by Akseli Gallen-Kallela from 18 March to 15 August 2027, the largest show of the Finnish artist’s work ever seen in Sweden. The programme does change, so we always check what is on view before we plan a visit.

Where to eat at the museum

Restaurang Nationalmuseum sits on the free ground floor, with a view over Strömmen and the Royal Palace. Chef Fredrik Eriksson serves Swedish food rooted in tradition, made from scratch with Nordic ingredients, and the menu changes every week. Klassikertallriken, a plate of Swedish classics, is a weekend favourite, and the pastry team bakes the buns and cakes for that all-important fika.

The room deserves a look too, since some of Sweden’s leading designers and artisans created everything from the tableware to the furniture. The restaurant takes no reservations, so simply drop by and order at the counter. Hot food stops at 15:00 on most days and at 19:00 on Thursdays.

In the evening the restaurant becomes an event space, and the museum can also open its entrance hall, staircase and Sculpture Courtyard for private occasions. For a company dinner in Stockholm, it is hard to think of a more striking setting. See our Corporate & Incentive Travel page.

Before you leave, stop by the museum shop, also on the free ground floor, with books, posters, jewellery, tableware and toys inspired by the collections, and a leather bench where you can sit down with an art book.

A quiet corner of the shop · Photo: Ylva Hedman

Nationalmuseum, answered