The agency of military flags in early modern Swedish heritage production
New dissertation in Art history by Karin Tetteris at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University.
Photo: Johanna Säll / Stockholm University and Erik Lernestål / SHM
In October 1657 the Swedish army conquered the Danish fortress Frederiksodde, forcing its defenders to surrender their colours and guidons. This dramatic event started a process whereby flags, as trophies of war, were musealised and heritagised. In the seventeenth century, captured flags were delivered from the battlefields of Europe to the Great Armoury of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Here, in one of the earliest museums in Sweden, they were exhibited in a historicised display modelled on European ideals for enacting dynastic memoria. Through time, as more Romantic sensitivities towards history evolved, the collection was reactivated in new displays. Flags captured centuries earlier were now called upon to serve a new national narrative.
Captured Colours: The agency of military flags in Early Modern Swedish heritage production investigates the agency of military flags in early modern Swedish heritage production. By following the group of Danish flags captured in 1657 from the time of their production until 1817, this study brings to light an assemblage of people, objects and practices that constituted military flags as important agents in early modern displays of power, honour, and reputation. Drawing on military treatises, archival sources, visual representations, and the preserved flags, it explores how flags became the “sacred objects” of the army that soldiers died to protect. It investigates how they were heritagised through display and documentation, offering new insights into the history of Swedish museums and its connection to war and military traditions.
Karin Tetteris is an art historian based at Stockholm University. Since 2010, she has been curator of the collection of flags at the Swedish Army Museum. Captured Colours is her doctoral thesis.
