Works by Munch and Quisling's Carpet at the Norwegian Residence

It's not surprising that Norway's newly renovated embassy residence at the northeast corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 34th Street is tasteful, understated and functional – with a few whimsical touches. Nobody sees the Norwegians as flamboyant, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington certainly reflects this.

The ornamental limestone building of English Georgian inspiration was completed in 1931 by the prominent Washington architect John J. Whelan. Unlike many other Washington embassies that had once been the homes of rich Americans showing off their wealth, it was purpose-built as Norway's embassy. Fittingly, a portrait of King Haakon VII dominates the entrance hall leading to the broad curved staircase. For one thing, Haakon was the country's first monarch following the dissolution of Norway's union with Sweden in 1905 and its emergence as an independent nation. Norway had been united with Denmark from 1381 to 1814, and then with Sweden from 1814 to 1905. Then too, the Norwegian artist Brynjulf Strandnaes, who painted the portrait, was among the numerous Norwegians who settled in the United States.

In addition, the Norwegian royal family has close wartime ties to the embassy. For example, the female sculpture in the jaunty hat that stands in the residence driveway is of Crown Princess Martha. She took refuge in Washington with her three children (including the future king, Harald V, the present monarch), following the German invasion of her country in 1940. The work of the well-known contemporary Norwegian sculptor Kirsten Kokkin, the statue was unveiled in 2005.

The Norwegian royals lived for a while in The White House as guests of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt before taking up residence in the embassy. To this day, spaces occupied by the crown princess and her son on the second floor, where Ambassador KŒre R. Aas and his family have their living quarters, are still referred to as "The King's Room" and
"The Queen's Room." The mahogany desk on the ambassador's ground-floor, oak-paneled study belonged to the crown princess, as did some other items of furniture still in place today.

"The starting point of the renovation was to make the building accessible for the handicapped and the elderly to bring it in-line with Norwegian regulations," explained Washington architect Eric Morrison whose firm, Morrison Architects, did the work. "To go with that, the first floor representation rooms were renovated," he said. An elevator was also installed linking the building's three floors, and the building's systems overhauled.

Specialists from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were on-site to ensure that the project conformed to Ministry criteria. "As part of the project, eight paintings that had been here since the 1940s were returned to the National Gallery in Oslo, and then all this new art came," said Jon-ge ¯ysleb¿, the embassy's Minister-Counselor in charge of communications and culture.

The result is that the residence's three representational rooms – library, living room, dining room – now display what is in effect a mini exhibition of works on paper by Norway's greatest artist, the 20th century Expressionist Edvard Munch. No, Munch's "The Scream," one of the milestone works in 20th century art, is not among them. But in addition to his status as a painter, Munch was one of the most innovative printmakers of the modern era. Taken together, the group provides a somber narrative of Munch's anguished, complex, sometimes bizarre view of the human condition, particularly the relationship between men and women.

In one well-known print titled "Jealousy II," a bearded man, apparently the loser in a love triangle as Munch was at the time, stares wide-eyed into nothingness while a woman displays her naked body to another man. The lithograph "Kvinnen" (Woman) shows three women, said by some critics to reference his mother and aunt. "Man's Head in Woman's Hair" was one of Munch's finest woodcuts, and one that reflects his fear of women as engulfing creatures. In the work, Munch makes use of the woman's red hair cascading over the man's head to represent the smothering tendencies that he saw in women. "Vampyr" (Vampire) is another portrayal of a woman having a bad hair day. In 2008, a painted version of this woodcut was sold at auction for $38.2 million, setting a new record for the sale of a Munch painting at auction.

The embassy has produced a concise, but useful, guide to the seven Munch works, and hung them on walls repainted in a neutral color palette – Hardwick white in the spacious living room; Oxford stone in the dining room. The residence library has pinewood paneling throughout and retro style Danish-design furniture. A painting by the contemporary artist Svein Bolling, "Kvinne med Stearinlys" (Woman With Candle), hangs above the mantelpiece. In the main dining room the retro table and chairs complement the clean lines of two antique mahogany sideboards. In one corner is a sculpture by Emil Lie, a leading Norwegian sculptor (1897 ‐ 1976).

In the spacious living room, or salon, bright sunshine comes flooding through its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Massachusetts Avenue. At the north end of the room is an unusual, rustic pinewood Biedermeier sofa with, as armrests, demilune cupboards. Above it hangs a landscape by the Norwegian 19th century romanticist painter Hans Dahl (1849 ‐ 1937). Another Dahl landscape of Norwegian fjords, one of his favorite outdoors subjects, is also in the room.

The large Persian floor carpet used to be in the office of Abraham Quisling. This is akin to saying that the drapes in The Oval Office once belonged to Benedict Arnold. Why? Quisling was the Norwegian Nazi prime minister put in place by the Germans when they occupied Norway in World War II. At the end of the conflict, Quisling was found guilty of treason and executed for war crimes; and his name entered the English language to describe a traitor, especially one who collaborated with an occupying force. But his carpet was evidently pardoned and "exiled" to Washington.