The National Portrait Gallery of Sweden is housed at Gripsholm Castle. The collection has about 5,000 works, mostly oil paintings, and more than 800 are at the castle. The gallery’s history reaches back to the 16th century, when King Gustav Vasa brought artworks to Gripsholm. An inventory from 1548 listed 98 paintings there, including 23 portraits.

Visitors can see portraits in the Hall of State and the White Salon, as well as in Hedvig Eleonora’s Apartments. The Hall of State’s portraits of rulers are copies made in the 1660s; the White Salon was created in the 1770s and 1780s and includes Alexander Roslin’s 1777 portrait of King Gustav III. Hedvig Eleonora added around 200 portraits, including paintings of children in her family.

The collection officially became the National Portrait Gallery in 1822. Later additions include portraits of Greta Garbo by Einar Nerman, Dag Hammarskjöld by Ben Shahn, and Carlo Derkert by Marianne Lindberg De Geer. The collection continues to receive works each year, including a Portrait of Honour donated by the Gripsholm Association.