Fritz von Dardel

Fredrick Ludvig von Dardel — his birth certificate mentions him as Frédéric Louis and he signed and is known in Sweden as Fritz von Dardel — is a 19th Century artist. Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on 27th March 1917 from a Swiss father and a Swedish mother, he died in Stockholm on 27th May 1901. See also the Dardel genealogy. He is the grandfather of another Swedish painter, Nils Dardel (1888-1943), who is famous in Sweden.

At the age of sixteen, he is a cadet in an artillery regiment of Sweden. He becomes a Royal Guard second lieutenant in 1837, then a lieutenant of the Swedish army in 1862. As early as 1850, he is the Military assistant to the Crown Prince Carl (the future king Charles XV, see the 1949 watercolour below). He serves as military attaché in Paris between 1858 and 1862. He becomes a member of the Swedish Academy of Arts in 1862, then its president in 1864. He is also the president of the management commitee of the National Museum between 1867 and 1892. He is a member of the jury of several art exhibitions in Europe (1867-1878) and in Philadelphia in 1876.

Fritz studied painting in Paris with Léon Cogniet and Eugène Lami. He is best known for his caricatures and watercolours, although he also did occasionnally oil paintings. As a cartoonist, he was strongly influenced by Rodolphe Töpffer of Switzerland, and he published his first drawings in the 1840s. His talent is expressed in numerous caricature albums, and — he was in the army — he depicted the uniforms of the Swedish and Norwegian armies in a high quality album published in Paris by Lemercier. In addition to his military career and to his activities in the royal court, he played a central rôle in the Swedish artistic life. His diary and memoirs were published posthumously between 1911 and 1920 and are a valuable contribution to the Swedish cultural history.