Jöran Polman

In the winter of 1620, 237 Hungarian ducats disappeared from Albrecht Budde’s room. He spent three years trying to prove who had taken them. The court required a witness. There was none.

The bones had lain hidden for nearly ten years before anyone found them. What followed was six years of court proceedings, a forged witness statement, a deathbed confession — and a captain who was already gone.

History remembers him as a Major who died for the Crown. But in 1635, Jöran Polman was a fugitive selling his wife's morning gift to escape a scandal — and leaving his widow to rewrite his legacy.

In 1623, the field marshal Herman Wrangel commissioned life-sized portraits of his officers, which adorn the walls of the magnificent baroque castle Skokloster. But how did they get there?

Contrary to his image as a steadfast captain, this chapter of Jöran Polman's story catches him red-handed in a drunken brawl.

Jöran Polman served with diligence, and was one of twenty soldiers whose portrait adorns the walls of Skokloster Castle. Explore the story of his portrait and the intricate fashion details of the seventeenth century during Sweden's Great Power era.

With his diligence, perseverance and career choice, Jürgen Polman charted the course that many generations of his family line would follow.

Known for his diligent service marked by a portrait on the walls of Sweden's Skokloster Castle, Jöran Polman's life story is much darker behind the scenes.

An alliance with the Lilliesparres brought a beautiful Ryssby manor – with which Christina was intimately acquainted – into the Polman family’s history.

The portraits of a man who could wield the paint brush as readily as the sword.