page_title: Emilie Högquist
section_title: Private life
hierarchical_section_title: Emilie Högquist / Life / Private life
caption_attribution_description: English: Emilie Högquist and her son Max
context_page_description: Emilie Sophie Högquist or Högqvist was a Swedish stage actress. She was a star of the Royal Dramatic Theatre and has been referred to as the first celebrity within Swedish drama and known as the Swedish Aspasia, both for her artistic ability but also for the literary salon she hosted. She is also known in history for her love affair with King Oscar I of Sweden.
context_section_description: In 1831–33, Emilie Högquist had an affair with the British diplomat John Bloomfield, 2nd Baron Bloomfield, who installed her in an apartment and with whom she had a daughter, Tekla, in October 1833.
  It was reportedly the king, Charles XIV John of Sweden, who financed Emilie Högquist's study trip to Paris in the summer of 1834, because his son Crown Prince Oscar had fallen in love with her and the king wished to have her removed.  Upon her return to Stockholm, however, the Oscar and Emilie had become lovers, and in the autumn on 1836, Oscar paid for Emilie Högquist to be installed in a "magnificent entrapment" at the Gustaf Adolfstorg 18, and was known for its "Asian luxury".  Reportedly, Crown Prince Oscar alternated in his nights between his "first family" in the Stockholm Palace, and his "second family" at Gustaf Adolfstorg 18 close by.  Emilie and Oscar had two sons, Hjalmar and Max. Max was named for Maximilian de Beauharnais, Oscar's brother-in-law.  The two boys were unofficially referred to as "the Princes of Lapland".  Max grew up to become a merchant in China, where he died in 1872. Hjalmar died in 1874 in London.
  Emilie Högquist was an intellectual and hosted a literary salon every Thursday for the Swedish art world of painters and authors. It is noted, however, that most of the guests at her salons were men, as women where afraid to be associated with her privately because of her reputation as a courtesan: some exceptions were noted, such as Malla Höök and Elise Frösslind.   She spent her summers at Framnäs on Djurgården.   Though she died greatly indebted, the support of crown prince Oscar liberated her from any financial troubles and she was active within charity.    She is noted to have acted as the patron of her brother Jean (Johan Isak) Högquist (1814–1850), who was a popular actor for a while, but did not manage his career because of his alcoholism: Emilie Högquist paid for his trip to the United States, but he returned on the year of her death, which is said to have affected him deeply, and died just three years later.  
  She is also noted to have supported the former operatic singer Henriette Widerberg, who lived in deep poverty after her career had been discontinued.
  From 1842 onward, Emilie Högquist suffered from the health problems of a progressing consumption, and spent the summer in Rome in Italy, where she was celebrated by the Swedish art colony.   Her health recovered, and upon her return, she visited her daughter and sons in Hamburg and met Emil Key, who was ten years her junior and became her last lover.
  In the summer of 1845 she made a health journey to Carlsbad, but her illness had progressed to a point where she was no longer able to recover sufficiently to manage her work, and her last season of 1845-46 was a failure: after her last performance in December 1845, she was bedridden until May 1846.  In July 1846, she left Sweden in an attempt to seek a cure for her consumption in a number of health resorts in Germany and Switzerland before continuing to Italy; she finally died in Turin 18 December 1846.
caption: Högqvist with Max, one of her two sons by King Oscar I
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