Sofia Adolfina Adlersparre (6 March 1808- 23 March 1862) was a Swedish painter.

She was born the daughter of a nobleman, Axel Adlersparre, governor of Öland

Öland

' is the second largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area of 1,342 km² and is located in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Småland. The island has 25,000 inhabitants, but during Swedish Midsummer it is visited by up to 500,000 people...

, and Carolina von Arbin, and displayed a talent for painting in childhood. When the artist C.F. Pedersen became shipwrecked near her home, she was taught by him, and when her family moved to Stockholm in 1830, she was educated by the artists Carl Gustaf Qvarnström (1810-1867), Johan Gustaf Sandberg

Johan Gustaf Sandberg

Johan Gustaf Sandberg was a Swedish painter from Stockholm. He was foremost a history painter and used settings from Norse mythology and Swedish history. His most widely known work in this area are his frescoes in Uppsala Cathedral that depict the Swedish king Gustav Vasa...

 and Olof Johan Södermark (1790-1848).

She debuted in 1836 when Crown Princess, Josephine of Leuchtenberg

Josephine of Leuchtenberg

Joséphine of Leuchtenberg was Queen consort of Sweden and Norway as the wife of King Oscar I...

, the future Queen of Sweden, ordered a painting from her and introduced her to useful contacts.

Adlersparre made several trips to study art abroad, to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. In 1839-1840, she studied under Leon Coignet in Paris, where she met Carl Wahlbom and Per Wickenberg. When she returned to Sweden, she opened a drawing school, where Amalia Lindegren

Amalia Lindegren

Amalia Lindegren, Amalia Lindegren, Amalia Lindegren, (22 May 1814 – 27 December 1891 was a Swedish artist and painter, from 1856 a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.- Biography :...

 was among her pupils.

In 1845, the Queen financed her continued studies in Paris; in 1845-1846, she studied in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, where she was inspired by J.C. Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...

 and copied older paintings, and in 1851-1855 she was given state support to study in München, Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. In Rome, she was a member of the Swedish artist colony and made contact with the German artist colony and the Nazarene movement

Nazarene movement

The name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art...

 under Friedrich Overbeck. She also converted to Catholicism and painted Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

Pius IX. Her paintings reflected the Romantic stylistic current of the era, though she was also much influenced by the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 artist Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

.

In 1855, Adlersparre made a visit to Sweden, where her works were exhibited in the Royal Palace.

In 1862, she returned permanently to Sweden and was granted a pension from the Litteratörernas och Artisternas pensionsförening. She died shortly after receiving the first payment. The same year, her brother's wife, the feminist Sophie Adlersparre

Sophie Adlersparre

Carin Sophie Adlersparre née Leijonhufvud , was a Swedish feminist, publisher, editor, writer and friherinna...

, demanded that women should be able to study art at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts

The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...

on the same terms as men. This demand was met in 1864.

Sources

• Österberg, Carin et al., Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare. Lund: Signum 1990. (ISBN 91-87896-03-6)
• Stålberg, Wilhelmina & P. G. Berg. Anteckningar om svenska qvinnor 1864-1866