Midvinterblot

Midvinterblot
Artist	Carl Larsson
Year	1915
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	640 cm × 1360 cm (250 in × 540 in)
Location	Nationalmuseum,

Midvinterblot (Swedish for Midwinter's sacrifice) is a painting created for the hall of the central staircase in Nationalmuseum in by the Swedish painter Carl Larsson in 1915. It has been mentioned as Sweden's most debated painting.

The painting depicts a legend from Norse mythology in which the Swedish king Domalde was sacrificed in order to avert a famine. After a long controversy it was rejected by the museum, but the debate resurfaced again in the late 20th century, after which it was finally honoured with the place where Carl Larsson intended it to be.

Larsson was commissioned to decorate all the walls of the central staircase in the museum except for one, and he wanted to decorate the last wall as well. He intended the last wall to present a contrast to the other illustrations of the staircase. Whereas the painting presented a midsummer theme with a triumphant king, Larsson wanted the last illustration to be a midwinter theme with a king who sacrificed himself for his people.

Larsson went to Copenhagen to visit the National Museum of Denmark where he copied the ornamentation of an Iron Age fibula. The literary sources that inspired Larsson were Adam of Bremen and Snorri Sturluson. On the subject of the Temple at Uppsala, Adam of Bremen had written:

In this temple, built entirely of gold, the people worship the statues of three gods. These images are arranged so that Thor, the most powerful, has his throne in the middle of the group of three. On either side of him sit Othin and Freyr. [...] Near that temple is a very large tree with widespread branches which are always green both in winter and summer. What kind of tree it is nobody knows. There is also a spring there where the pagan are accustomed to perform sacrifices and to immerse a human being alive. As long as his body is not found, the request of the people will be fulfilled.

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