Niclas Lafrensen

Niklas Lafrensen (30 October 1737 - 6 December 1807) was a Swedish genre and miniature painter.

Portrait of Queen Sophia Magdalene of Sweden, circa 1792

Niklas Lafrensen (known in French as Nicolas Lavreince) was the son of the painter Niklas Lafrensen the Elder and Magdalena Stuur. His father was a skilled miniature portrait painter, and Lafrensen received his earliest training from him. The years 1762-1769 he spent in Paris. In 1773 he became a member of the Painter and Sculptor Academy.

He is said to have become exasperated that he had been passed over by his professors, and that was the reason he left Sweden in 1774 and re-settled in Paris, where for 17 years worked as an artist under the name Lavreince. In 1791 Lafrensen was forced to leave France during the French Revolution, and came home to Sweden and painted a portrait of King Gustav III shortly before his death. In the latter part of his life he produced few works.

Besides miniatures, Lafrensen painted mostly gouache. Lafrensen is represented in a number of Swedish and foreign museums, including a dozen of his works at The Louvre. The Nationalmuseum owns about 50 of his miniatures and 13 gouaches, including Three Ladies Who Make Music, Music Making Men and Women in Landscape and Card Gaming Ladies.

  • Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon
  • Carl G. Laurin, Art History, Stockholm 1919
  • Carlquist, Gunnar, ed (1933). Swedish dictionary. Bd 16. Malmo Swedish Uppslagsbok AB. pg. 688-689
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