A Garnet Cup

“This cup is from the collections at Tidö, and has belonged to the Lord High Chancellor, Count Axel Oxenstierna”, it was said at the purchase in 1814. The cup, undoubtedly, has been at Tidö, considering it was sold at the auction after the death of the owner Hedvig Ulrika De Geer. The problem is, however, that the cup was made some decade after the great Oxenstierna’s death in 1654. More likely it had belonged to his grandson Axel Eriksson Oxenstierna (1652-1676) and an understandable confusion occurred – to the benefit of the story but to the detriment of truth.