Nationalmuseum

If you love art – particularly European art – you’re in for an absolute treat at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, where masterpieces spanning six centuries are displayed in roughly chronological order through a series of suitably grand rooms, halls and corridors.

Stars of the show in the Nationalmuseum are fine French Impressionist and Dutch Golden Age pieces by the likes of Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Cézanne and Degas. There’s also a quite marvelous collection of around half a million prints and drawings that date from the Middle Ages to the early 20th Century. Explore the best in Swedish sculpture in the tranquil Sculpture Courtyard and admire the striking Scandinavian designs of thousands of ceramics sourced from the historic Gustavsberg Porcelain Factory.

Exhibitions in 2023 include ‘The Garden’, featuring garden-inspired pieces by Carl Larsson, Monet, Renoir and more. Then there’s ‘Beauty and the Unexpected’, a journey through American arts and crafts from the 1950s to the present day, and ‘The Joy of Giving – Silver Donations’, with baroque, rococo and modern examples of silverwork tankards, jewelry, candlesticks, goblets and more.

Among the dozens of must-see pieces in the gallery, make time to visit Carl Gustaf Qvarnström’s 19th-century bust of Swedish author Fredrika Bremer, Rembrandt’s The Kitchen Maid, and Gauguin’s Fields by the Sea.