Håkan Wretljung

"It is rare to have images of the Crown Princess that go outside the official representation.
The photographer Håkan Wretljung found himself in a unique situation when, in May 1984, he worked to produce models for the large royal family portrait that the artist John E Franzén was to paint. The assignment included group photos, close-ups and detailed studies. The artist chose a beautiful room in the palace at Drottningholm where the family lived, with tapestries and paintings on the walls, stucco, double doors and large windows. The different ages of the children of the royal family meant that they had to take breaks in the work. The younger siblings needed to play and run off at regular intervals. Then Victoria took the opportunity to stroll around, she was a big girl then, 8 years old.
Håkan Wretljung captures her in the middle of a moment, in a snapshot with only one exposure from his 35 mm camera. We recognize her folk costume-inspired attire from the official portrait. But here she is relaxed and although still a child already with a precocious posture with her hands clasped behind her back. Wide-eyed, curious and with her mouth open, she looks at the portraits on the walls.
An atmosphere of wonder surrounds Victoria. The falling silvery light gently caresses the girl's figure and the reflections in the parquet give her a floating lightness. The transparent bow in the hair shimmers. We see the crown princess through the doorway, as if stealthily, she seems to be guarded by two safe chairs on both sides of the half-open doors. Her wonder also becomes the viewer's: she is as if in another reality, she seems to belong to another dimension both actually and in transferred meaning, with a life ahead of her that is marked out from the beginning of destiny, and of the duties that await a Crown Princess. But right here she takes a small step to the side and it's as if time stops.
This photo brings to mind Velasque's painting of Las Meninas, with the Infanta Margarita in the spotlight, or Johannes Vermeer's portrait of the Astronomer and the Geographer. It is about an enchanted atmosphere that belongs to a moment, a small moment of silence when different levels of reality meet and acquire a poetic charge ― of knowledge, intuition and beauty.
And through Håkan Wretljung's artistic eye that captures this rare moment, the future comes to meet us."

Essay by Kristina Maria Mezei