Ulrik Thersner

Ulrik Thersner was a Swedish soldier and artist know for this work Fordna och närvarande Sverige, a collection topographical illustrations of Swedish landscapes and buildings. Thersner started drawing manor houses and landscapes while carrying our triangulation surveys in Skåne between 1815 and 1817.

Fordna och närvarande Sverige was published in volumes from 1817 with aquatints for Thersner’s drawings done by military cartographers and engravers Carl Fredrik Akrell and Wilhelm Maximilian Carpelan. The Skåne volume was completed in 1823 with volumes for Östergötland (begun in 1820), and Uppland and Södermanland (1824-25) to follow.

Thersner died on the 2 September 1828 in Västerås and his widow Anna Gustafva Thersner took over the publication with lithographs engraved by Michael Gustaf Anckarsvärd using Therner’s drawings as models and contributions by others including some by Anckarsvärd himself.

In 1843, Thersner’s daughter Thora Johanna Ulrika Thersner took over the publication, completing the remaining nine counties lithographing of her own drawings. Thora Thersner devoted her life to completing her father’s work and at the time of her death in 1867, the work comprised 91 volumes containing 364 illustrations almost half of which were created by Thora Thersner herself.