Fredrika Limnell

Catharina Fredrika Limnell née Forssberg (Härnösand, 14 July 1816 – , 12 September 1897), was a Swedish philanthropist, mecenate, feminist and salonist.

Fredrika Forssberg was born in Härnösand Municipality in Västernorrland County, Sweden, as the daughter of lektor Olof Fredrik Forssberg and Catharina Margareta Svedbom. She had two siblings, but the elder sister died in first year of life and her younger sister drowned when she was 13.

Fredrika Limnell was raised in a literary home and had the ability to cultivate her interests in literature and music. Prior to her first marriage, she was engaged to the poet Anders Grafström, but the engagement was terminated on her initiative. In 1842 in Stockholm, she married her cousin, (1811–1857), headmaster at Nya Elementar in Stockholm and editor of Aftonbladet with whom she had two sons, William (1843) and Erik (1855). After the death of her first husband, she was married in 1858 to (1823–1882), a lieutenant in the Civil Engineering Corps and later office manager at the Swedish Royal Railway Board. Together with Carl Limnell, she built Villa Lyran, an exclusive summer villa in the district Bredäng, a suburb in south-west Stockholm. The couple also maintained a winter residence at Gustav Horns palats at Fredsgatan 2 in Stockholm, today the site of the Medelhavsmuseet.

Already during her first marriage, she moved to the capital of Stockholm, where she became the center of a literary salon. She was a benefactor of artists: she partially financed Fredrika Bremer's trip to Palestine, and supported Selma Lagerlöf economically so she could concentrate on her writing. She held a salon for the artist elite, and gathered artists as guests at , her country villa on Lake Mälaren from May–September, where Jenny Lind, Gunnar Wennerberg, Victoria Benedictsson, Carl Snoilsky, Carl David af Wirsén, Emil Sjögren, Christina Nilsson and Henrik Ibsen were among the guests. King Oscar II of Sweden also visited it. The so-called Limnellska salongen (The Limnell Salon) was particularly popular during the 1870s- and 1880s, and known as a hospitable center of the Swedish cultural elite. Among her guests were Björnstierne Björnson, W F Dalman, Ivar Hallström, L J Hierta, Elise Hwasser, Henrik Ibsen, Carl Snoilsky, Sophie Adlersparre, Amanda Kerfstedt and Anna Hierta-Retzius. Her son, the composer Vilhelm Svedbom (1843–1904), arranged soirees at her salon, and Pontus Wikner held lectures in philosophy. She also arranged for new authors to read their work in her salon, or have actors to read their works for them in her salon. She herself read aloud poems from Werner von Heidenstam before he became known, and Selma Lagerlöf read excerpts form her novel Gösta Berlings saga in her salon before it was printed and published.

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