Stockholm, Day 5 - Nationalmuseum

My last day in Stockholm was all about culture. I really wanted to go and visit the newly reopened Nationalmuseum. I was really disappointed though to discover that they only had one guided tour scheduled - each week! Not one per day, but one per WEEK! What?!

Luckily I had downloaded their free audio guide on my phone, so we listened to that while we walked through the galleries. We started in The Sculpture Courtyard. 

The Nationalmuseum is Sweden's foremost museum of art and design. The museum itself was founded already in 1792, but it's been housed in this building designed by the architect Friederich August Stüler since 1866. It has been closed for renovation for most of the 2010s and reopened just last year.

There was just so much to see and explore, the collections include around 700,000 artefacts, paintings, sculpture, drawings and graphics. We started on the top floor and followed the proposed route 'The Timeline', which took us through about six centuries of art.

I found some vases by Alf Wallander, the only Swedish artist in the collections of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Nice with a bit of a connection!

A Rembrandt (1630):

Gustaf Cederström, "Bringing home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden" (1877-78):

Anders Zorn, "Midsommardans" (1897) displayed together with the Peter Johansson "How to cook a souvenir":

And of course in the end, I spend quite a bit of time in the shop, buying just a few books I couldn't live without! Oh how I wish I had unlimited luggage allowance..!