The Art Academy's collections include everything from paintings, drawings, graphics and sculpture to textiles, furniture and many other types of objects. Overall, the collections reflect the development of art and architecture in Sweden during the almost three hundred years that the academy has been active. In addition, there is also even older material that goes all the way back to the 1500th century.

The core of the academy's art collection is what are known as reception pieces. These are works submitted to the academy by new members as a proof of their work. Submitting receipts has been mandatory since 1773 and still applies today. Artists and architects themselves choose what they want to submit, which makes the collection extra exciting and varied. In older times, the reception pieces were also used in teaching as examples of good role models.

In addition to reception pieces, the collection has been built up with the help of many donations and purchases over the years. The most famous work in the collection is the Rembrandt painting The Batavian oath of allegiance to Claudius Civilis, which has long since been deposited at the National Museum. The painting was bequeathed to the academy by Anna Johanna Grill (1745-1801). > Read more

The different parts of the collection

Plasterer
The Academy of Arts owns one of the world's oldest collections of plaster casts of famous sculptures, which were used in teaching. The vast majority are copies of ancient sculptures, but Renaissance and later art is also represented. The oldest of the plasters were already purchased at the end of the 1600th century by Nikodemus Tessin and came to Sweden in three boatloads between 1695 and 1700. Since then, it has continued to be supplemented with plaster casts of architectural ornaments. > Read more

The print collection
The print collection also tells us about art education. Historically, students studied and copied the works of the masters, starting with prints. The collection includes some 15 engravings from the 000th to 1500th centuries, both black-and-white reproductions of famous paintings, and motifs suitable for students of architecture and interior design: ornaments, wall embellishments, urban planning and celebratory arrangements.

Student works
The largest part of the Art Academy's collection, however, consists of student works from about 1740 to the 1990s. Model drawings, antique chalk drawings, anatomy studies and student graphics from the 1900th century amount to nearly 20 objects. There are also sketchbooks from young art grantees' travels in Europe. Even some painted scholarship works remain, mostly large copies of oil paintings from the Louvre.

Women in art history 
The Art Academy was the first education of its kind to formally accept female students in the form of the so-called Fruntimmersavdelningen, which opened in 1864. Even before that, however, both female students and members had already existed in the 1700th century. The traces of these women can be found in several places in the academy's collections and archives. > Read more