Gosse with an Eagle: From Swedish artist to Swedish movie

The sculpture 'Gosse with an Eagle' is a masterpiece by the renowned Swedish artist Carl Milles, created in 1908 and executed in a larger scale in 1910. The artwork represents a naked youth on his knees, on a stone block, as he lifts an eagle with outstretched wings. The sculpture is based on the Greek mythology, depicting the beautiful Ganymedes who was kidnapped by Zeus and transformed into an eagle. This sculpture stands outside National Museum in Stockholm today.

However, the sculpture was not just a work of art but also a source of inspiration for the Swedish film industry. In 1916, Mauritz Stiller, a famous Swedish filmmaker, made a film called 'Vingarne' based on Herman Bang’s novel 'Mikaël'. Stiller changed the central painting to the Milles sculpture 'Gosse with an Eagle'. The sculpture can be found in other locations as well. Replicas of the sculpture can be found in Göteborg, Lidingö, and Stockholm, and in Uplands nation’s garden in Uppsala and on Waldemarsudde on Djurgården in Stockholm.

Milles also cast a smaller bronze version of the sculpture in 1910, which was mounted on a 110 centimeter high mahogany pillar. A villa named Villa Vingarna existed at Korsvägen 9 in Äppelviken, Bromma, in 1914. An exemplar of Milles’ sculpture 'Gosse with an Eagle' stood in the garden of Villa Vingarna.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons