(TGM-BM.1938-39:146-148)

This furniture, a sofa and two armchairs, was donated to the museum in 1939 by the director of the hotel Finse Høyfjellshotell. They were belonged to Henrik Ibsen and were probably bought while he worked at Det norske Theater in Bergen in the 1850ies. He has moved them with him to Oslo, where they accompanied the small Ibsen family to all their homes until the spring of 1864. Then Ibsen left Norway, and the furniture was put into storage in the attic of the Christiania Theater. But just two months after Ibsen had left the country, the furniture, in addition to books and other household goods, was put up for auction.

The person who bought the furniture, which at that time consisted of the sofa and six chairs (in mahogany with damask upholstery), was needlemaker Eriksen. After that, it is not certain where the furniture has gone, but it stayed at Finse høyfjellshotell for many years before it was given to the museum. In an advertisement in the Easter issue of a magazine from 1928, people could read about the furniture, and Hotel Finse’s director Klem was criticized for not marking the furniture with a silver plaque stating that it had once belonged to Henrik Ibsen.