If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 298

Sinclairsholm, Skåne, Sweden, ca 1908

A side trip to a local antique mall netted this Axel Eliasson vintage postcard showing the front of Sinclairsholm Castle in southern Sweden.   The card is unused and has the number 4142 on the reverse in the lower left corner.  It was printed in Germany and distributed in the United States by the Swedish Importing Company of Worcester, Massachusetts.  All early color postcards were hand tinted or painted before mass printing.  

The original castle was constructed mainly of wood and completed in 1626.  There are been at least two major fires that resulted in changes to the outward appearance of the castle.  Today the main portion of the building dates from 1788.  One of the things that makes this particular card historically interesting is that the building has the French Chateau style mansard roof, designed by Mauritzberg From, that was the result of a major renovation completed in 1880.  There was another fire in 1904.  In 1956 a second major renovation and restoration project replaced the French Chateau style and restored the building to its original 1788 design, seen below in a Google Image.  It has a completely different look making the Chateau style a sort of historical oddity of less than 100 years.

Sinclairsholm, Skåne, Sweden, as it appears today

[photo:  Google Images and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholm_Castle ]

]

Anders Sinclair or Sincklar (1555-1625), A Scottish nobleman, was a Danish privy counselor in the late 1500s to the early 1600s under the Danish king Christian IV.  He was also an envoy to England, a military colonel and the governor of Kalmar, Sweden following the Danish capture the city.  He  was also the holder of extensive fiefs in Denmark.  After he married Kirsten Kaas in 1600 he left the court and established this estate named for him.  Construction appears to have been begun around 1620 but not completed until 1626 a year following Sinclair’s death.   His son, Christian Sinclair (1607-1645) took over the ownership.  It was later purchased first by Jochum Beck with ownership changing hands a couple of times until 1808 when it was acquired by the family Gyllenkrook who have passed it forward in the family.  Through marriage it is now the estate of the family Barnekow and owned by Johan Barnekow. 

My family members may find it fun and interesting to note that among all the properties that he held, Anders Sinclair at one time exchanged one of his fiefdoms for Hammerhus on the Danish island of Bornholm since that island is where my paternal grandfather was born and lived until he came to America in the 1890s.  In 1982 we visited Bornholm and walked around the ruins of Hammerhus.  

Part of the Hammerhus, Bornholm ruins, Denmark, 1982

It is always fun to find some connection to places, events and people.   Postcards offer peeks into the past that often result in unexpected surprises. 

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5ne_County
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholm_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ssleholm_Municipality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sinclair_(privy_counsellor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scania
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholms_slott&prev=search