Carl Gustaf Pilo - Early Years

Early Years

He was born on the farm Göksäter in Runtuna Parish near Nyköping, Södermanland to painter Olof (Oluff) Pilo (Pijhlou) and Beata Jönsdotter Sahlstedt.

Early information about his career contains many inconsistencies, on account of disagreements between two sources contemporary with his life. In spite of his father's protests Carl Gustav chose to be educated as a painter instead of receiving a book education. He probably received his early training from his father, who had earned his living as a young man as a decorative painter at Drottningholm and Stockholm Palace, although other indications say that he was trained by a painter named Crisman in Stockholm, Sweden. Training for Pilo would have begun in Stockholm as early as 1723.

Pilo’s career began as a craft painter. He became an apprentice in 1731. According to Anton Friedrich Büsching (1754) Pilo traveled through Germany to Vienna 1734-36; this however is contradicted by Thure Wennberg (1794) who insists that Pilo never traveled out of Scandinavia but instead was a student at the newly established Swedish Drawing Academy in 1735. He probably worked as a craft painter between 1733 and 1738.