Skokloster Castle is a Swedish Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It became a state museum in the 1970s and displays collections of paintings, furniture, textiles and tableware as well as books and weapons that amount to 20,000 items.

Museum collections

The finished parts of the castle display the full, sumptuous splendour of the Baroque. Its detailed chambers are home to collections of paintings, furniture, textiles and silver and glass tableware. One of the most famous paintings is the 16th century Vertumnus by Italian master Giuseppe Arcimboldo, depicting the face of Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II as the Roman god of the seasons using fruits and vegetables. The painting was taken as war booty in Prague in the 17th century.

The castle armoury and library are noteworthy, both founded on Wrangel’s collections of weapons and books and enriched and enlarged by other 17th- and 18th-century aristocratic bequests, such as those by Carl Gustaf Bielke.

The armoury contains the largest collection of personal 17th century military weapons in the world. Mostly muskets and pistols, but also swords – including Japanese samurai swords – small cannons, pikes and crossbows. The weapons collection also includes various exotic items such as a 16th-century Eskimo canoe and snake skins. The original scale model of the castle, which the architect Caspar Vogel had made to demonstrate his plan to Count Wrangel, is also there. A large part of the collection are war spoils looted from Poland during the Deluge in 17th century.