AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM

– The Nordic Way

By The IK Foundation

December 8^th, 2024

From the 1870s to the 1900s, various people interested in cultural history in Scandinavia began researching their countries' old customs and traditions. The general idea was mainly to collect household goods, textiles, agricultural implements and house types from the disappearing agrarian society in the countryside. Small collections were formed from purchased and donated artefacts, which formed these early museum collections. The present-day Frilandsmuseet, a beautifully situated museum close to København in Denmark, became one of these places. This visual story aims to give glimpses into some of the many interiors and exteriors in historical landscapes – focusing on household textiles – learned from my visit on a warm summer day at this open-air museum.

The founder was Bernhard Olsen, who bought this piece of land in 1901 – here portrayed at the museum entrance some years later in 1915. However, already in 1885, he had been the cofounder of Dansk Folkemuseum. In 1897, he had arranged to re-build a few traditional farm buildings in central København in Rosenborg Castle Gardens – later moved to the dedicated museum outside the capital. The origin of the Danish National Museum in København emphasised Danish history, archaeology, ethnography and art. In 1851, the scattered collections of the museum were placed in a single building, the Prince’s Palace. Purchasing trips were undertaken to Malmö in Sweden, and textiles were bought there. For instance, more than twenty interlocked tapestries originated from Skåne and Halland, provinces which, much earlier, pre-1658, had been part of Denmark.

Oil on panel by the Danish artist Dankvart Dreyer (1816-1852), a whitewashed farmhouse with thatched roof in a landscape, probably on the island of Fyn in the 1830s or 1840s.

This log plank farmhouse with a farmyard and three buildings initially housed a family in Halland in Sweden, here illustrated from the living quarters with the displayed well-preserved 19th century bench covers woven in interlocked tapestries of flax in the warp and wool for the weft. While one picture shows how the sloping ceiling sections indoors were often decorated with textiles during feasts and festivals. Several meters long and narrow fabric was handwoven with an unbleached linen warp, the same thread used for the shuttled ground weft, and usually red and blue art-woven decorative borders – like on this interior textile. The dwelling house, displaying these interiors, was reconstructed at the open-air museum in 1900 and 1901.

These particular textiles were acquired around the turn of the century 1900, after some discussion with the Swedish museum man Georg J:son Karlin, who had already, in the early 1880s, developed an idea of an open-air museum in Lund, southernmost Sweden. The nucleus of his museum was rural artefacts and buildings from the Skåne province. Still, Karlin’s interests went beyond that to other times and other cultures, including Danish textiles, Chinese porcelain, South American textiles, antique glass and much more from a global perspective.

More than seventy farmhouses and adjoined buildings have been reconstructed at this Danish open-air museum, and everywhere, the traditional domestic economies and everyday life from the historical perspective of the pre-industrial society from diverse geographical regions and various social standards are present. Over several generations, a comfortably living farming family owned this farm from Schleswig in southern Jylland, today the borderland between Denmark and Germany; initially built in the late 17th or early 18th century (reconstructed at the open-air museum in 1976). The beautiful exterior and interior gave several examples of textile handicrafts in the domestic sphere. In particular, a small experimental flax plot close to the dwelling house and decorated cloth chests hint at the comfort of owning a rich selection of interior textiles and clothes during the 18th and 19th centuries, whilst an ongoing loom demonstrated this type of household’s weaving skills.

Oil on canvas by the Danish artist Niels Pedersen Mols (1859-1921) in 1913, probably from southern Jylland in Denmark.

These two rooms are part of the interior of a late 17th century farmhouse from Ostenfeld, Southern Schleswig, which was, at that time, part of Denmark but is now in present-day Germany. The family here consisted of prosperous farmers living in a farm building with a high ceiling, a sizeable central hall, and smaller rooms alongside the long hall. The well-preserved seat cushion in the picture was probably part of the dowry, woven in a part-piled weave, a widespread technique in several Nordic areas, particularly during the 18th century and early 19th century. The motif choices for the piled sections include the traditionally used motifs, here in the form of diagonal squares and crosses surrounding a young couple. While the chest chamber, with lockable chests, proves how important it was to simultaneously protect the family’s valuable textile treasures as a wealthy display. Reconstructed at the open-air museum in 1900 and 1901.

This early 17th century brick-built farmhouse with a thatched roof from nearby Ejdersted in Southern Schleswig is another example of the well-to-do farmers in this area. According to the museum information: ‘The prosperity in the region was due to the international trade in grain, butter and beef cattle’. Interestingly, two seat cushions of the same part-piled weave, with traditional almost identical ornamentation – of crosses, diagonal squares and roses – but in different colour scales are displayed among the furnishing dating from the early 19th century. The chest on wheels on the stone flooring in the entrance hall may have been used for interior textiles, clothes or other household goods, reconstructed at the open-air museum in 1960.

Oil on canvas by Niels Pedersen Mols (1859-1921) painted in 1888 of children and their grandmother with her ongoing knitting near a farmhouse in an unknown Danish countryside location.

Painting by Wilhelm Bendz (1804-1832) in 1831 of a winter landscape from Fyn in Denmark. This illustrative oil on canvas shows the harsh, snowy winter conditions in a farmhouse community.

This smallholder’s cottage was occupied by a family who shared their living space – in a larger whitewashed and thatched-roofed building – with several other families in the 19th century on the island of Lolland in Denmark (reconstructed in 1957). Among many daily work occupations, keeping sheep for wool was essential for the household to be able to spin and weave warm bed textiles. The wool basket to the left is in a traditional Danish model, while one of the pictures visualises the most commonly used striped featherbed in various striping and colours for the crib as well as the bed along the wall. It was woven in a very densely beaten twill technique, a type of warm bedding commonly used in Denmark and many other Scandinavian provinces. The same striped fabric was used for pillows, and the illustrated linen sheets were probably only used for special occasions in this relatively poor household.

A Faroe Island landscape and a smallholding captured on an oil on canvas by Jògvan Waagstein (1879-1949) in 1918.

This Faroese croft historical landscape and group of buildings have been recreated at the open-air museum and moved from Mule on the Faroe Islands. Initially, the house was built in 1866 by a sheep-farming family who complemented their livelihood with fishing and fowling. As for their subsistence, sheep farming was the foremost activity, and the wool thereby provided was mainly treated and transformed into knitted and woven items. The islanders used stockings, mittens and sweaters – and, as in this recreation, warm stripy woven bedclothes of wool. In addition, the woollen garments were important export articles destined for Denmark, reconstructed at the open-air museum in 1965.

In Denmark, on the island of Själland, this oil on canvas by Johan Lundbye (1818-1848) gives a tranquil and romantic view of the strenuous farming life 1844.

As a final example of wealth displays vis-a-vis constrained living conditions – as in the Faroe home as well as in the romantic painting above – at the open-air museum, this substantial oak half-timbering Little Manor from Fjellerup in Jylland with whitewashed facades was built initially in the mid-17th century, with present interior furnishing dating circa 1915 and first reconstructed at the open-air museum in 2003. The interior is beautifully recreated, with each piece of furniture placed in almost the same position as in several old, early 20th-century photographs that are visualised in the living room. From a textile perspective, the homely interior includes machine-made lace curtains, so prevalent then, an embroidered fire screen, a linen tablecloth with added machine-made lace, a garish-coloured carpet, and a spinning wheel from the previous century.

This open-air museum showing life in a bygone era is a fascinating experience, which can be enjoyed from many angles – by everyone from toddlers, school children and those historically interested in rural, diverse societies, settlement establishments, museum environments, culture and economy, home interiors and exteriors, a living animal farming and not least from my point of view textile traditions from various local perspectives in Danish provinces over several centuries. The interdisciplinary encounters give today’s visitors joy, admiration, optimism, and distraction, but also an increased understanding of the hardships involved in living one’s life in many of these damp and cold dwellings hundreds of years ago.

Sheep on a hill, painted in the landscape at Skarritsø in Denmark, 1845. Oil on canvas by Carlo Dalgas (1821-1851).

IDEA & TEXT BY

Viveka Hansen

CONTRIBUTORS

We are grateful for the digitisation of artworks and photographs by museums and organisations – listed below in sources of illustrations.

SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS

All pictures at Frilandsmuseet, Denmark, in July 2024

Viveka & Lars Hansen, The IK Foundation.

Other photo credits are listed in order.

Bernhard Olsen, Frilandsmuseet in 1915. (National Museum of Denmark, Wikimedia Commons).

Oil on panel by Dankvart Dreyer (1816-1852). (Sold at Bruun Rasmussen Auctions, 2010. Public Domain).

Oil on canvas by Niels Pedersen Mols (1859-1921). (Sold at Bruun Rasmussen Auctions, 2023. Public Domain).

Oil on canvas by Niels Pedersen Mols (1859-1921). (Sold at Bruun Rasmussen Online, 2024, Public

Domain). Oil on canvas by Wilhelm Bendz (1804-1832) in 1831. (The Hirschsprung Collection, Denmark).

Oil on canvas by Jògvan Waagstein (1879-1949) in 1918. (The National Gallery, Faroe Islands).

Oil on canvas by Johan Lundbye (1818-1848) in 1844. (Statens Museum for Kunst, Denmark).

Oil on canvas (cropped) by Carlo Dalgas (1821-1851) in 1845. (The Hirschsprung Collection, Denmark).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This visual story is based on Viveka Hansen’s iTEXTILIS visit to Frilandsmuseet, Denmark, in July 2024.

Other sources

Andersen, Paulli, Danske bondevaevninger – Hvergarnsstoffer ca. 1750-1850, København 1981.

Andersen, Paulli, Danske bondevaevninger 2 – Olmerdug, bolsterstof, København 1983.

Fischer, Birthe Karin, Uld og Linnedfarvning i Danmark, København 1968.

‘Frilandsmuseet, Nationalmuseet | National Museum of Denmark’ (During the visit in July 2024. Information signs at the open-air museum gave geographical provenance for each building, including the original building period and rebuilding year at the museum).