The finding of the body of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden after the battle of Lützen

The drawing is an elaborate but early design for Wahlbom’s famous painting of the same subject, dated 1855, in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (fig. 1; inv. NM 1242). The composition also differs from an earlier work depicting the death of one of King Gustav II Adolf (1594-1632), a lithograph from 1836-1837 (an impression can be found in the same collection, inv. NMTiG 3407). His death occurred at one of the major battles in the Thirty Years’ War, which took place near Leipzig. Wahlbom treated the sovereign’s death in a second painting at the Nationalmuseum (inv. NM 1028).

Fig. 1. Johan Wilhelm Carl Wahlbom, The finding of the body of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden after the battle of Lützen. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.© Viktor Fordell / Nationalmuseum.