Henrietta (Henriette) Wilhelmina Sofia Sjöberg (6 April 1842 — 6 February 1915) was a Swedish painter,

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

and

art teacher Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practic ...

. She is remembered for contributing some 200 meticulously crafted watercolours of Swedish cultivated plants to the Sveriges Kulturväxter project. After the project was abandoned in 1896, she produced botanical wall plates for schools and contributed illustrations to the Swedish Horticultural Association's two-volume work on Swedish fruits. From 1901, Sjöberg spent the rest of her life as a drawing and painting instructor at the

Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (), formerly the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture (), founded in 1813 at the initiative of Crown Prince Charles, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdo ...

. Many of her works can be seen in Sweden's

Nordic Museum The Nordic Museum () 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 begin in 1520) to the ...

Early life and education

Born on 6 April 1842 in

Linköping Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...

, Henrietta Wilhelmina Sofia Sjöberg was the daughter of Anders Gustaf Sjöberg and his wife Helena Sofia née Andersdotter. After growing up in Stockholm, when she was 17 she attended the handicrafts school Slöjdskolan which had just begun to admit women. She was instructed in watercolour painting by Johan Zacharias Blackstadius and in flower painting by Anna Tigerhielm, the wife of the botanist

Nils Johan Andersson Nils Johan Andersson (20 February 1821 Gärdserum, Småland, Sweden – 27 March 1880 Stockholm), was a Swedish botanist and traveller. He studied at Uppsala University between 1840-45 obtaining a DSc. On 30 September 1851 he accompanied the Swe ...

. She spent about ten years at the school, earning medals for both drawing and

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

Career

While she was still studying and until 1875, Sjöberg worked as an engraver at the

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

company run by Karl Ström and Carl Gustaf Höglind. It was there she met N.J. Andersson who initially employed her to illustrate diseased plants for the Agricultural Academy which were later published in journals, including that of Svenska trädgårdsförening. the Swedish horticultural society. From 1880, she produced coloured illustrations for the Svenska kulturväxter project which set out to cover all of Sweden's cultivated plants. The project was terminated in 1896 when it was realized it would be impossible to document the considerable increase in new breeds. Neverless, Sjöberg had produced plates of some 200 cereals, fruits and vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, plums and strawberries. Meticulously produced, they can be seen today in the collection of the Nordic Museum. From 1896, Sjöberg produced botanical wall plates for schools and contributed illustrations to the Swedish Horticultural Association's two-volume work on Swedish fruits titled ''Svenska fruktsorter i färgglada afbildningar'' (published successively in 1899 and 1912). From 1901, she spent the rest of her life as a drawing and painting instructor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Thanks to their outstanding quality, her illustrations were admired both at home and abroad. Henriette Sjöberg died in Stockholm on 6 February 1915 and was buried in

Norra begravningsplatsen Norra begravningsplatsen, literally "The Northern Burial Place" in Swedish, is a major cemetery of the Stockholm urban area, located in Solna Municipality. Inaugurated on 9 June 1827, it is the burial site for a number of Swedish notables. Th ...

, the city's North Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sjoberg, Henriette 1842 births 1915 deaths People from Linköping 19th-century Swedish painters 19th-century Swedish illustrators 20th-century Swedish illustrators Swedish women illustrators 20th-century Swedish educators 20th-century Swedish women educators 19th-century Swedish women painters 20th-century Swedish women painters Swedish botanical illustrators Swedish women engravers