Gustaf III was arguably Sweden’s most cultured monarch. His interest in the arts bordered on the obsessional and all aspects of architecture, art, music and literature were utilised to glorify the role of absolute monarch, which he assumed after his coup d’etat in 1772.

Before he came to power he had spent his time associating with a range of international intellectuals at the court of Louis XV, even if their conversations left him disappointed. He wrote to his mother, Queen Lovisa Ulrika, ‘I have become acquainted with almost all the philosophers here: Marmontel, Grimm, Thomas, the Abbé Morellet and Helvétius, but it is much more amusing to read them than to meet them.’

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