Christian Erikssons Bågspännaren statue

Bågspännaren is a bronze sculpture by Christian Eriksson, standing on Kornhamnstorg in Gamla stan, Stockholm. Created in 1916, the statue depicts a man drawing an armbow. It is one of two monuments in Stockholm honoring Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson and his struggle against the regime of Eric of Pomerania. The other monument has been located in the garden of Stockholm City Hall since 1932.

The sculpture was originally intended for Falun as part of a larger group of statues honoring Engelbrekt. It was rejected in 1909 because it was considered too much of an idea-sculpture and not enough of a conventional hero portrait. It was eventually replaced in Falun by Karl Hultström's Engelbrekt statue in 1919. A third copy of Bågspännaren was later erected in Rottneros Sculpture Park.

The model for Bågspännaren was Christian's good friend Gösta Fagerlind, a senior teacher at a folk school in Arvika. The sculpture is very lifelike, except for the hair which is styled into a polka-style cut. A copy also stood on a pillar in Gammelgården, Stora Tuna (Borlänge), which was stolen in 2020. A relief of the statue appears on a memorial stone on Södra Djurgården, erected by Djurgårdens IF in 1955 to commemorate the club's early days when ski jumping was organized near Skansen.

A similar figure, likely inspired by Eriksson's Bågspännaren, appeared on a right-wing campaign poster painted by Gunnar Widholm for the 1914 riksdag elections. An armbow was subsequently used as a symbol of the right-wing party and its youth wing for a long time, while the Engelbrekt bow is still used in certain contexts by the Moderata youth wing.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons