Two paintings by Jenny Nyström reunited after a hundred years

Thanks to a donation from Sällskapet Nya Dryaden, Kalmar, the Kalmar county museum has been able to purchase a painting by Jenny Nyström from Ulf and Ann-Kristin Kaijser, Solna. The painting, which has a "sibling painting" at the Kalmar county museum, is now reunited after many years. 

This is how the reunion went  

The black and white photograph was taken with Lorentz Kaijser and his wife Ellen in their home in Enköping around 1903. To the left of the shelf on the wall is a painting depicting an open book and a flower basket painted by Jenny Nyström. On the right hangs another painting by Jenny Nyström, executed in a similar style, but with the motif of a fan behind a still life of various fruits and berries. It was probably the couple who had bought the two "sibling paintings", which are signed in Paris in 1882.

But over time the paintings were separated - either when the Kaijsers dissolved their marriage in 1906, when Lorentz died in 1932, or when Ellen passed away in 1937.

The painting with the flower basket ended up with the spouses Kaijser's eldest son Egron. After Egron's death in 1959, it remained with his wife Märta, and was inherited by his son Sverre in 1985. Since 1999, the painting has been at the home of Sverre's son, Ulf Kaijser, and his wife Ann-Kristin Häggkvist in Solna. In the spring of 2023, the Kalmar county museum bought the painting with the book and the flower basket by Ulf and Ann-Kristin after a donation from the New Dryaden Society, Kalmar.

The painting with the fan came to Ulf's grandfather's brother, Folke Kaijser, and was also inherited from father to son. When Folke's son Gunnar died in the mid-1990s, the painting was sold at auction - to the Kalmar county museum.

The two sibling paintings, which at the beginning of the 20th century hung together and then came apart for many years, have now finally been reunited!

The paintings were unveiled on June 13, 2023. On this day exactly 169 years ago, the popular artist saw the light of day in Kalmar.