Carl Gustaf Pilo - Return To Sweden

Return To Sweden

Pilo left Denmark on 10 or 11 October and arrived in Stockholm in November, after having visited the Ramel family in Skåne. He appeared before the Swedish court but received no immediate commissions.

He was made an honorary member of the Swedish Academy of Art in 1773, and received the Vasa Order in 1784. He traveled about between Skåne and Stockholm during 1772-1775, until settling down in his childhood town of Nyköping in 1775. Gustav III looked him up, requesting him to paint the coronation. Pilo tried to get out of it, because he had not been there at the time and he had never painted a group picture in his life. But the King would not take No for an answer. He wanted something to match Ehrenstrahl's picture, at Drottningholm, of Charles XI's coronation, and he wanted Pilo to do it.

Pilo was named Director of the Swedish Academy in 1777, but first took office in 1780 when he also received an apartment in Stockholm as part of his directorship at the Academy. He lived out his days at the Academy, both engaged in the Academy’s business and in painting his masterpiece, the painting of Gustav III’s coronation in Stockholm’s Cathedral, which he worked on until the very end.

He died in Stockholm on 2 March 1793, and is buried at Klara Church.

His prolific output in Denmark consisted mainly of portraits of the royals and the nobility, but included also genre paintings in the Dutch style. For over two decades, he was acknowledged as the foremost portrait painter in Denmark. In addition to Peder Als, other students of his were Per Krafft and Lorens Pasch.