Lecture about the Bruun family at Bø Museum

04 February 2025

Last Thursday, Ingrid Elstad gave a glittering lecture at Bø Museum about the Bruun family and their fantastic objects.

Ingrid Elstad is a historian at Melbo Manor and has studied the Bruun collection carefully. After having been in the family’s possession, the collection was donated to what was then called the Vesterål Museum after the war. The artefacts have been well cared for and tell a unique story of prosperity and class differences in Vesterålen 200-300 years ago.

For over a hundred years, from 1750 to 1865, the Bruun family was one of the wealthiest families in Vesterålen. The background for the wealth was jektefart. The Jekta was the container ship of the time: Three generations of Bruun delivered, among other things, stockfish to Bergen and got the vital grain back with them. On the jekts, however, there was room for gold and exotic goods as well.

Ingrid Elstad and photographer Eirik Linder Aspelund have selected some objects and taken pictures of them up close. A tiny women’s ring has many details and they only become apparent when you enlarge the perspective. The same with the strange head-hand figure that is only 3 cm in real life. 17 christening caps and 4 children who grew up tell us that personal tragedies also affect the rich, when such things happen, hairpins made of tortoiseshell have no meaning. The Bruun family was well-liked and respected in their time.

It is therefore a pleasure for us to be able to show this photo exhibition here in Bø as well. The widowed lady Bruun also had an inn in Hovden, and Regine Normann writes about her in the novel Eiler Hundevart from 1913.

You can see the exhibition at the museum on selected days in February:

Thursday 6/2 at 17-19Sunday 16/2 at 12-15Thursday 20/2 at 17-19Thursday 27/2 at 17-19

 Entrance NOK 50, free for children. Welcome!