Pontus Fürstenberg
Merchant Pontus Fürstenberg (1827-1902) was a Gothenburg businessman and municipal politician. He is best known for being an art collector and a patron of the arts.
About the archive
The Pontus Fürstenberg archive (H 66) has an extensive amount of letters from artists, mirroring Fürstenberg's contacts with several of the most prominent artists of his time - many of them members of the artists' association Konstnärsförbundet - including Carl Larsson, Anders Zorn, Bruno Liljefors, Richard Bergh and Karl Nordström. Fürstenberg was also the patron of Olof Sager-Nelson, a painter out of the ordinary. A large collection of letters relating to Pontus Fürstenberg are therefore available in the Sager-Nelson archive.
The Fürstenberg archive also includes various biographical records, as well as prints and photographs. All in all, the archive spans ten volumes, covering the 1870s through the 1910s.
Biography
Pontus Fürstenberg (1827–1902) cultivated his interest in the arts early on, but it was through his marriage to Göthilda (1837–1901), née Magnus, that the investments in art and his full patronship could be realised, as she countributed several million SEK to their mutual assets. Göthilda, too, had a great passion for the arts, and the couple were mainly dedicated to the generation of artists that were part of the Konstnärsförbundet association. In time, their private art collection grew so large that they needed to build a gallery where the art could be kept. The Furstenbergs lived in the building which is currently known as the Palace house, in Brunnsparken, Gothenburg, where the art collection was kept. Today, the collection is held by the Gothenburg Museum of Art.
Read more
On Pontus Fürstenberg in Svenskt biografiskt lexikon
The Fürstenberg gallery at the Gothenburg Museum of Art
Wiberg, Totte. Fürstenbergska galleriet: mecenatparet, konstnärerna och samlingen.