THE HALLWYL COLLECTION
How is a life measured and how is a person remembered?
Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl decided that both questions were best answered through the many objects that she spent a lifetime collecting.
Born an only child and heiress of a wealthy timber-merchant, she married the Swiss count Walther von Hallwyl when she was 20.
At the time, most western countries were in the process of undergoing a radical transformation, from rural nations to heavily industrialized and urbanized economies.
The British Arts and Crafts movement was one form of aesthetic resistance to this paradigm shift.
In Sweden, the ethnologist Artur Hezelius was the driving force behind two large project, Skansen and Nordiska Museet.
Both meant to gather and put on display objects from the soon-to-be irrelevant rural lifestyle of the Swedish countryside and its traditional way of living.
Wilhelmina von Hallwyl was greatly inspired by Hezelius’ ambitious project to save the memory of Swedish traditions.
In 1893, she and her husband commissioned Isak Gustaf Clason to build them a private townhouse, today known as the Hallwyl Museum, in central Stockholm.
Completed in 1898, it has a Venetian-inspired façade, richly decorated rooms, and an impressive art collection. The couple was among the wealthiest in Europe, and their mansion had electricity installed before most of Europe’s royal palaces.
Rolf de Maré, grandson to Wilhelmina von Hallwyl and founder of Ballet Suédois, has talked about his childhood as being played out in a series of dark and somber rooms.
He has vividly described how melancholic he felt when he heard the heavy palace door close behind him, and the festive sounds from Berzelii Park (described in works by August Strindberg) across the park were heard no more.
The most peculiar thing about the museum is how appears to be frozen in time.
During her lifetime, Wilhelmina von Hallwyl collected everything, from furniture and art to used tin-cans and old socks.
Everything was, in her eyes, an important reminder of the recent past.
She and her husband even saved a piece of the Count’s beard, as well as a slice of their wedding cake.
Every single item had to be documented, and in the final version, the catalogue that they created contained approximately 50,000 entries, printed in 79 volumes between 1926 and 1957.
Visiting the museum today is like stepping back in time, everything perfectly preserved as it was the day it was gifted to the Swedish state in 1930, following the death of Wilhelmina von Hallwyl.
