This wall cabinet from 1899 is a rare document of the collaboration between Märta Norberg and her future husband, Carl Otto Lundgren, whom she married in 1901. The cabinet is signed by both of them: Lundgren executed the woodwork, while Norberg was responsible for the painted decoration. The piece reveals a lesser-known aspect of Norberg’s artistic practice. She is primarily known as a portrait painter, but here art and craft converge in a collaborative work.

Norberg’s decoration is executed in a Japonist style, characteristic of the late 19th century’s fascination with Japanese art. Japanese woodcuts and applied arts offered European artists an alternative to the academic pictorial tradition, with asymmetrical compositions, decorative surfaces and strongly stylised natural motifs. Japonisme also had a significant impact on the applied arts, where the boundaries between fine art, ornament and functional objects could be transcended. The cabinet thus places Norberg’s painting within an international artistic context, while also reflecting the turn-of-the-century ambition to unite artistic expression with the objects of everyday life.