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9 unusual facts about Gustav III of Sweden


Aldershvile slotspark

The Aldershvile estate was subsequently sold to Adolph Ribbing, a Swedish count who had been exiled for his involvement in the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden.

Anna Charlotta Schröderheim

She was one of the most known socialites of her time and became one of the more known symbols of the Gustavian age.

Carl Tersmeden

He also wrote lengthy memoirs under the title Lefnadsjournaler, which finally totalled some 11,000 folio pages and are often detailed descriptions of society, his own deeds, naval battles and the performance of the Gustafs skål on revolution-night, 19 August 1772, in honour of Gustav III of Sweden.

Giovanni Volpato

Volpato made excavations in Ostia (1779, with the antiquarian Thomas Jenkins), Porta San Sebastiano (1779) and Quadraro (1780); and sold sculptures to king Gustav III of Sweden (1784), to the Vatican Museums, and to the British collector, Henry Blundell.

Gustafs skål

"Gustafs skål", literally Toast to Gustav, is a song written by Carl Michael Bellman as a salutation to Gustav III of Sweden, following the coup d'etat of 1772, which made himself an autocrat and ended the parliamentary age of liberty.

Kungliga Hovkapellet

Since 1773, when the Royal Swedish Opera was founded by Gustav III of Sweden, the Kungliga Hovkapellet has been part of the opera's company.

Kuninkaanportti

Och här låg konungen Gustav den sista stenen år ("And here laid King Gustav the last stone in the year", the year is left unwritten, because Gustav III never arrived to lay the last stone)

Stockholms Auktionsverk

Its services have been used by clients like Sweden's King Charles XI, who sold some hunting rifles for 900 silver coins, Sweden's King Gustav III, who acquired Rembrandt’s painting entitled “Kitchen Maid”, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg, who purchased some books.

Ulf Adelsohn

He is also a descendant (great-great-great-great-grandson) of Jacob Johan Anckarström, the assassin of king Gustav III of Sweden.


Conquest of Stockholm

The conquest of Stockholm 1523 is depicted in the Swedish opera Gustaf Wasa from 1786 by Johann Gottlieb Naumann, where the libretto was written by Johan Henric Kellgren and Gustav III of Sweden.

Hedvig Wigert

Just as the great Elisabeth Olin, she was by then a singer and well known for her musical talent, called: "one for her musical talent already well-known female", and Gustav III wanted her for the part of the goddess Doris in the opening grand opera Thetis och Pélée (an opera in Swedish composed by Francesco Uttini with words by Johan Wellander) at the inauguration of the new Opera.

Johann Gottlieb Naumann

In 1777, as a result of negotiations by Swedish diplomat Count Löwenhjelm, Naumann was appointed to reform the Stockholm Hovkapell and assist King Gustavus III in his opera plans.

Louis Jean Desprez

He traveled frequently to Italy and was associated with Piranesi in Rome, when he came to the attention of Swedish King Gustavus III, who offered him a two-year contract as director of scenic decorations at the new Stockholm Opera founded by the King two years earlier.

Maria Fortunata d'Este

While at the French court, in 1784 she met Gustav III of Sweden, styled incognito as the Count of Haga who was a guest at he Hôtel de Toulouse and later on she met Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great.

Ulla von Höpken

Ulla was used as the model of the naked Venus sculpture by Johan Tobias Sergel, Venus aux belles fesses (1779): King Gustav III wished to have a statue of Venus opposite his statue of Apollo in his salon, and "as a compliment to our ladies in waiting", Ulla von Höpken was chosen as the model.


see also