Frederick Adolf

1771
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
The future King Gustav III of Sweden and his younger brother Frederick Adolf sat for Roslin on several occasions during their 1771 visit to Paris. Gustav’s sessions were cut short when he received word, at the opera, of his father’s death. Roslin subsequently adapted his sketches of Gustav into the canvas here. The younger prince, by contrast, remained longer in Paris and continued to sit for Roslin, which perhaps accounts for his portrait’s more successful composition.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Frederick Adolf
  • Artist: Alexander Roslin (Swedish, Malmö 1718–1793 Paris)
  • Date: 1771
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Framed: 45 1/4 × 35 1/16 × 3 15/16 in. (115 × 89 × 10 cm)
    Unframed: 32 5/16 × 25 9/16 in. (82 × 65 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: The Swedish National Portrait Gallery, Stockholm, Gift 1879 from Baronness Anna Adelswärd, b. Macnamara (NMGrh 1991)
  • Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts