Agnes Branting (1862–1930)

Agnes Branting was born to a prosperous middle-class family in Värmland, west-central Sweden. Her father Carl Johan Branting was a pharmacist ]there, and after his death, her mother Maria Karolina Lundh moved with her daughters to Skara, where Agnes attended a girls' school. Later she studied at the Slöjdföreningens skola (Handicraft Association School), from which she graduated in 1883, and the Tekniska skolan (Technical School) in Stockholm, which had just begun to admit women. She became one of the first two trained drawing teachers with a textile focus in Sweden. In 1885, Agnes Branting joined the Handarbetets (Friends of Handicrafts Studio or HV) and from 1891 she was director at HV and led its studio operations until 1904. Her great interest was in ecclesiastical textile art, and she spent many years researching the topic, including making trips to other countries. She gained international attention as a pioneering textile researcher and writer whose books on historical sacred clothing, fabrics, and embroidery included Das goldene Gewand der Königin Margareta in der Domkriche zu Uppsala (The Golden Robe of Queen Margaret in the Cathedral Church in Uppsala, 1911); Textil skrud i svenska kyrkor från äldre tid till 1900 (Textiles in Swedish Churches from Older Times to 1900, published 1920); and Medieval Fabrics and Embroidery in Sweden (2 volumes, 1928-1929), with art historian and professor Andreas Lindblom.