17th century AD

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2004 by Elsebeth Welander-Berggren

This article considers the making of Swedish looking glasses between 1650 and 1850, a period often termed the age of the guild in Sweden, when production of finely crafted mirrors, furniture, and silver was at its height. In Sweden, as in other European countries, the guild system was a means of organizing crafts, with craftsmen associated in guilds that granted them certain privileges and regulated their output. Only masters approved by the guild were permitted to practice a craft. In Sweden, mirror makers, silverers, gilders, and glassmakers were governed by hall courts, which issued regulations applicable to crafts and industrial operations that were not covered by the guilds. Basically, the same rules applied to both groups. The first hall court regulations were issued in 1722. They included provisions governing manufacturing privileges, the conditions for acceptance as a journeyman or master, the obligations of laborers, and the organization and workings of the hall courts. The hall courts also granted permission to establish a factory and inspected the goods produced; approved goods were stamped with a hallmark after payment of a fee. The hallmarks differed from city to city, but usually depicted the city's coat of arms. In addition, the hall court resolved conflicts between employers and employees. The last hall court regulations were replaced by government legislation in 1846. A looking-glass maker began as an apprentice, advanced to journeyman status, and after some years could be acknowledged a master. Under the 1774 regulations of the guild, the Mirror Factory Society in Stockholm, he was required to complete one masterpiece. (1)

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The period from 1611 to 1718 is often called Sweden's age of greatness. During the 1630s the government made a major commitment to mercantile trade, which resulted in a great upsurge in Swedish exports. Sweden exported more bar iron and iron cannon than any other country in Europe, for example. It also exported great volumes of copper and pine tar. The economic policies of the day encouraged the agricultural population to concentrate on producing agricultural products and city dwellers to produce consumer items. One means of hastening the progress of Sweden's business community was to bring in capital and technical and mercantile expertise from more economically advanced countries in western and central Europe. Thus, the Swedish government promised special benefits to wealthy foreign merchants, industrialists, and craftspeople who would settle in Sweden, and a variety of them, especially the Dutch, Flemish, and Germans, immigrated to Sweden in the seventeenth century. In the effort to discourage imports and spur exports, the manufacturing of mirror glass was begun in Sweden during this period, although the government was well aware that mirrors imported from Germany and France would be less expensive for Swedish consumers.

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Mercantilist trade and business policy was pursued until the mid-nineteenth century, with the result that the guilds gained great monopolistic powers. With the rise of liberalism in the mid-nineteenth century, including the assertion of the freedom to establish a business, the guild system and the hall courts fell by the wayside.

Sweden's population in 1625 is estimated to have been approximately 1.1 million. By 1721 it had swelled to some 1.5 million, in 1800 to about 2.5 million, and fifty years later, it had increased by approximately another million. In 1850 more than 90 percent of the population lived in the countryside. Looking glasses were manufactured in the cities, and that was where most of them were owned until the nineteenth century. Initially, only the court and members of the nobility could afford to own looking glasses because they were very expensive. However, the finances of many groups within society improved greatly during the eighteenth century, and burghers were increasingly able to build grand residences and acquire expensive furnishings, such as looking glasses. Members of the clergy and prosperous farmers could also devote more time and money to the acquisition of such luxury objects. We must assume that the early looking glasses were imported to Sweden, but we know that a rich and interesting domestic production got under way during the eighteenth century.

The baroque period in Sweden fell between two major wars, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the Great Northern War (1700-1721)--the war that gave rise to Sweden's age of greatness and the war that brought it to an end. During the period, Swedish furniture, chandeliers, looking glasses, and silverware were strongly influenced by German styles and interior decoration. With its victory in the Thirty Years' War, Sweden became a major European power, and returning soldiers brought with them a determination to create a lifestyle worthy of the nation's new status. Architects such as Nicodemus Tessin II (1654-1728) and Jean de La Vallee (1620-1696) worked on the grand stone palaces (slotts) such as Skokloster Slott (built 1654-1668) in the province of Uppland, about fifty miles northwest of Stockholm; the palace of Countess Ebba Brahe (1596-1674) in Stockholm (today the Dutch embassy); Eriksberg Slott in Sodermanland (built c. 1740s); and Drottningholm, a royal palace in Stockholm begun in the early 1660s. But not all of the new residences of the nobility were so grand. Smaller manors were built of timber to more modest designs.