Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden - Large Canvas Print

Bringing Home the Body of King is an oil painting by the Swedish artist Gustaf Cederström that exists in two versions. The first was painted in Paris in 1878 and has been in the collections of the Gothenburg Museum of Art since 1939. This second version was painted in 1884 and was acquired the same year by the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

It is cold and a freezing wind is blowing through the landscape. A blue banner with Karl XII's monogram flutters in the strong wind. The war is lost. The wounded and defeated Carolingians are on their way home over the mountains from Fredriksten (now Halden) in the cold winter of 1718. Their commander and king is dead and Sweden's time as a great power is over.

The artist Gustaf Cederström, who painted the picture, made his version of the event just over 160 years after it took place. He worked consciously and carefully to stage this moment. He wanted the painting to be perceived as convincing and real as possible. He made careful preparations and the painting contains many credible details.

Despite all this, the painting is far from a historically accurate depiction. Instead, the whole is a fantasy based on a historical event, just like many other history paintings. The painting is at the National Museum in Stockholm.

King Karl XII (1682–1718) has been used at different times and by different groups as a symbol of Sweden and “Swedishness.” Karl XII's funeral procession was painted during a time when nationalism was growing strong throughout Western Europe.