The Statue Cast from Captured Cannons

In 1770, the statue of Gustav Vasa was cast in bronze by Gerhard Meyer using material taken from trophy cannons seized during conflicts against the enemies of the realm. The 11-foot-tall figure, sculpted by Pierre Hubert L'Archevêque, depicts the monarch in Burgundian clothing and a cloak, wearing a laurel wreath and carrying a scepter. These elements symbolize victory and power.

In 1760, Ridderskapet and the adeln decided to fund the monument at their own expense. They wanted to memorialize Gustav Vasa as a nobleman who became king through his own achievements. The statue stands on a pedestal and a base made of marble. On the pedestal is a bronze shield surrounded by a snake biting its tail, flanked by ears of grain, which have been symbols of power and victory since antiquity.

At the rear of the pedestal is a bronze vase, a symbol for the Vasa dynasty, of which Gustav Vasa was the first. While the statue was unveiled on 24 June 1774 - 251 years after Gustav Vasa's victorious entry into Stockholm in 1523 - it has since been moved. It previously stood in the middle of Riddarhustorget before being moved to its current location in the early 1900s.

During the unveiling in the early morning of 1774, the statue was covered and decorated with boards. Following a lunchtime procession led by Count Axel von Fersen, King Gustav III was presented with a gold-beaten memorial medal. In the summer of 1775, the King honored the statue by marching to it with the Life Guards, who stood around the monument and fired their rifles.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons