Rosalie Sofie Sjöman (née Hammarqvist, 1833–1919) was an early Swedish female photographer. From the mid-1860s, she became one of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

's most highly regarded portrait photographers.

Biography

Born on 16 October 1833 in

Kalmar Kalmar (, , ) is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 36,392 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of ...

in the south of Sweden, Sjöman was the daughter of John Peter Hammarqvist, a captain in the merchant navy. When she turned 22, she married Captain Sven Sjöman, who was 15 years senior to her. After moving to Stockholm in 1857, the couple had two sons and a daughter. When her husband died of alcoholism in 1864, she worked as the assistant to the photographer Carl Johan Malmberg who had established one of the city's earliest photographic studios in 1859. She later took over his studio and operated it in her own name. Sjöman soon gained a reputation as one of Stockholm's best portrait photographers. She eventually employed a staff of some ten assistants, opening studios in Kalmar,

Halmstad Halmstad () is a port, university, industrial and recreational city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Socia ...

and

Vaxholm Vaxholm is a locality and the seat of Vaxholm Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. It is located on the island of in the Stockholm archipelago. The name Vaxholm comes from Vaxholm Castle, which was constructed in 1549 on an islet with this nam ...

. She was also conversant with the latest techniques, coating her images with a thin film of

collodion Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types: flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, ...

to gain a glossy effect. She also produced coloured portraits with tinting, several of which can be seen in Stockholm's

Nordic Museum The Nordic Museum ( sv, Nordiska museet) is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said to be ...

Artur Hazelius Artur Immanuel Hazelius (30 November 1833 – 27 May 1901) was a Swedish teacher, scholar, folklorist and museum director. He was the founder of both the Nordic Museum (''Nordiska museet'') and the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm. Back ...

bought 26 of her works for his collection in 1877, four years after he founded the museum. Examples of her portraits can also be seen in the Royal Library. In 1875, she married the photographer Gustaf Fredrik Diehl who had been active in

Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus ne ...

, Finland. After giving birth to a third son and a second daughter, in 1881 she moved with her five children to a new property of Regeringsgatan where she opened a new studio, soon separating from Diehl. In the early 1880s, she took her most celebrated portrait, a photograph of her daughter Alma surrounded by roses. She continued to run her studio on Regeringsgatan until 1905. Sjöman died in Stockholm in 1919, aged 86. She is remembered as one of Sweden's earliest female professional photographers along with

Emma Schenson Emma Sofia Perpetua Schenson (21 September 1827 – 17 March 1913) was a Swedish photographer and painter. She was one of the earliest female professional photographers in Sweden. Biography Born in Uppsala on 21 September 1827, Schenson was the ...

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

Hilda Sjölin Hilda Sjölin (1835–1915) was a Swedish photographer, one of the first known professional woman pioneer photographers in her country. Life Hilda Aurora Amanda Sjölin (1835-1915) was raised in Malmö as one of four daughters, where she was th ...

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

and

Wilhelmina Lagerholm Wilhelmina Catharina Lagerholm (1826–1917) was a Swedish painter and an early professional female photographer. After first studying and practising painting, she turned mainly to photography in 1862, opening a studio in Örebro in central Sweden ...

Örebro Örebro ( , ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, sixth-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Örebro Municipality, and capital of the Örebro County. It is situated by the Närke Plain, near the lake Hjälmaren, a few kilometers in ...

Biography

See also

References

Further reading