4. The Study

This room is a bit dark and gloomy, but nothing was supposed to distract Heidenstam in here. You can see his chair where he was writing letters, speeches, articles and so on, but no novels or poems were ever published from here. After he received the Nobel Prize in literature the year 1916 he became very self-critical, nothing was good enough, he thought. He also had trouble in spelling. He used up a word list a year.

Heidenstam travelled a lot, already as a young man he visited Italy, Greece, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. On these travels he started to paint and decided he would become an artist. The painting to the right of the window was made by him as an art student in Rome. He also studied art in Paris before he decided to become a poet instead. The painting to the left, showing us King Karl XII in his grave, was made by him in 1918.

The painting opposite the desk was made by his great friend Prince Eugen (thunderstorm across the Lake Vättern).

Heidenstam had difficulties in getting used to electric light. That is why he had shades on the lamps as you can see in here.

Heidenstam was very fond of animals and here at Övralid lived also a Danish dog called “Vapsen”. He came to Övralid as a puppy and lived on for 14 years, died the year before his master and was buried on the grass slope beneath Heidenstam’s grave. The picture shows Vapsen sitting in Heidenstam’s work chair.

On the desk you can see a drawing made by Heidenstam himself showing his tomb, which is situated near the terrace opposite his house. There he lies buried together with his first wife and his mother.