Signed and Numbered Etching of Windmill By Lake Hammarby in Sweden. Depicts path near lake with figures walking below a windmill up on a hill. Signed H.A. Sausey bottom right. Numbered 118/180 bottom middle. Titled in Swedish bottom right: "Motårn Från Hammarby Sjö" ("The Opposite Tower from Hammarby Lake"). All writing in pencil. Label on back with gallery information. 

Overall: 14 x 11 in.

Sight: 8 x 5 1/2 in. 

#2569 . 

In 1735 Carl Gustaf Tessin set up a drawing school at Stockholm Castle in Sweden, naming it the Royal Drawing Academy. It was modeled after French academies of the day as a gathering place for established artists and art connoisseurs. The painter Guillaume Taraval and the architect Carl Hårleman taught there, and the first group of students included Johan Pasch. In 1766, the academy expanded its activities following a parliamentary decree. In 1768, its name was changed to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1773, King Gustav III wrote the first statutes for the academy’s organization. At the time, the curriculum spanned architecture, graphics, anatomy, theory of perspective, and cultural history. The late 18th Century is considered the first golden age of the Royal Academy, when great artists of the time such as Johan Tobias Sergel were elected as members and also taught there. In 1810, it was renamed again to Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (Swedish: Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), the name it still bears today. By the 1830s there was growing opposition to the Royal Academy’s commitment to “traditional” academic art. In addition, while both men and women could be elected as members of the academy, at the time women could only study art by special permission. In 1864 women students were finally accepted, but calls continued to permit more experimentation in art forms. The Opponenterna (“the Opponents”) was a group of 84 Swedish artists who, under the leadership of Ernst Josephson, organized the Opponentrörelsen (Opponent Movement) in the 1880s. On March 27th, 1885 the members submitted their written demands to the Royal Academy for a modernization and reform of art education, exhibition activities, and support for artists. Their demands were rejected, which in turn led to the formation of the Konstnärsförbundet (Artists’ Association) the following year. The movement primarily consisted of young artists who had been to Paris and the Swedish artist colony in Grez-sur-Loing. They were heavily influenced by French painting, capturing peasant life and the rapidly changing countryside in the throes of industrialization, which soon had a great impact on the Swedish public perception of art as well. Some of the Opponents included August Hagborg, Carl Larsson, Eugène Jansson, Karl Nordström, and Georg Pauli. Their influence in turn inspired countless European artists at the turn of the 20th Century, who sought to capture the landscapes, people, and culture of Sweden in their own work.