Skokloster Castle is a Swedish
Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by the wealthy military commander
Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of
Mälaren, a lake between
Stockholm and
Uppsala. It was designed mainly by Caspar Vogel; other architects involved included
Jean de la Vallée and
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. The castle is a monument to the
Swedish Age of Greatness, a period in the middle of the 17th century when Sweden expanded to become one of the major powers in Europe. Wrangel's death in 1676 meant that the castle was never truly completed. The castle became a state museum in the 1970s and displays collections of paintings, furniture, textiles and tableware, as well as books and weapons.
Photograph credit: Marcin Szala