It is not every day you see Carl von Linné dangling from a crane. But in Stockholm this month, the father of modern taxonomy was hoisted through the air in green straps, 2.8 meters of restored bronze-colored zinc, and gently set back onto the southwest facade of the Royal Palace, where he belongs.
Linné was not alone. Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, Erik Dahlbergh, and Georg Stiernhielm came back with him. The four statues have been restored as part of the Royal Palace’s enormous facade renovation, and they are now back on the Slottsbacken-facing wall for the first time in years. The photographs of the operation are spectacular: the great botanist swaying beneath a crane while workers in helmets and harnesses watch from the scaffolding, the palace wrapped in white sheeting behind them.
Four giants of the Swedish golden age
The statues have been there, in spirit, since around the turn of the last century. When King Oscar II decorated the facade toward Slottsbacken with bronze reliefs and sculpture groups, he chose to honor what the Swedes call the stormaktstiden, the great-power era: the men who made Sweden a cultural and scientific force. Carl von Linné gave the world its system for naming living things. Tessin the Younger designed the Royal Palace itself. Erik Dahlbergh fortified the realm and mapped it in the magnificent Suecia antiqua et hodierna. Georg Stiernhielm is remembered as the father of Swedish poetry.
The statues, created by sculptor Johan Axel Wetterlund, are mostly made of zinc, which has now been given a protective treatment designed to bring back their bronze-like gleam. After the restoration they look the way Oscar II intended: dark, dignified, and watching over the water.
A renovation measured in decades
The facade project is one of the great slow works of Swedish heritage. The Royal Palace’s facade covers around 30,000 square meters, with 28 free-standing sculptures and 717 baluster figures. The renovation has now passed its halfway point, and the whole undertaking is expected to be finished in 2050. That is a quarter of a century of scaffolding, cranes, and craftsmanship, all to keep one of Europe’s great baroque palaces standing proud.
There is something deeply Swedish about the patience of it. No rush, no shortcuts, just the steady work of the National Property Board, Statens fastighetsverk, and its conservators, statue by statue, baluster by baluster. This month it was Linné’s turn to fly. By 2050, the whole facade will shine again, and the four giants will have watched over another generation of Stockholmers.
For now, the palace wears its scaffolding like a work in progress, and the returned statues are the first sign of what is coming. History, it turns out, is heavy. It takes a crane to put it back where it belongs. Readers who love royal heritage can also enjoy our coverage of Japan’s Imperial Family admiring Edo masterpieces and Prince Daniel’s night at the Hasselblad Prize in Gothenburg.
Photo: Claes Olsson/SFV / Kungahuset.
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