The Ladies' Wing Staircase
The Ladies’ Wing Staircase today houses the largest permanent installation of ceramicist Marit Tingleff’s works. The installation is a comprehensive commissioned work created for the Main Manor’s staircase, from the hall up to the Knights’ Hall, the Ladies’ Cabinet, and the Herrebøe Room. Tingleff has, with her characteristically powerful expression, delivered a cohesive work with references to Hafslund’s activities and history.
About the artist and work
The work
Faience References, 2024
Ceramic works modeled in earthenware, decorated with glazes.
Marit Tingleff has personally placed the platters in the staircase, where they form a cohesive composition. On the back wall hang oversized platters in a symmetrical, undulating pattern, their colors carefully coordinated with the magnificent railing and stairway from 1762. The installation, which extends across the entire wall, mirrors classic faience and porcelain arrangements—like the Ladies’ Cabinet’s porcelain wall nearby, now in dialogue back to back.
Tingleff’s monumental dimensions and powerful expression make the work both grand and magnificent, while remaining distinctly modern. Two large platters adorn the side walls. Toward the Herrebøe Room, the largest hangs high, visible throughout the entire stairway as a preview of the back wall. Toward the Knights’ Hall, another hangs low at eye level, where pearlescent glazes with layered patterns invite close examination on the way in.
The artist
Throughout her career, Marit Tingleff has been inspired by old Norwegian pottery craft, which she has transformed into a personal and modern artistic language. Tingleff is particularly known for her large monumental platters with strong decorative power. The works are based on the functional object, the platter, enlarging them beyond usability and transforming them into painterly reliefs, or sculptural images. Characteristic of her work are the combinations of few colors, intense strokes, and many glaze layers that she works to evoke transparent effects with depth and tension. Tingleff’s platters are as much paintings, images, as they are ceramic platters.
Marit Tingleff’s works have been acquired by many museums, including the National Museum, Designmuseum Danmark, Nordenfjeldske Museum of Decorative Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum, and several others. In addition to exhibitions in Norway’s largest cities, Tingleff has also had solo exhibitions in Stockholm, London, and New York. At the National Museum, her works are displayed in the permanent exhibition with pieces such as “The Black and Orange Platter” and her plate shelf “Blue Landscape.” Both of these can be thematically and artistically linked to the works in the Ladies’ Wing staircase.
Other objects
Chandelier
Eight-armed chandelier, gilt bronze, 20th-century historicism. From Arnstein Arneberg’s restoration in 1937.
Sconces
A pair of three-armed sconces, gilt bronze, 20th-century historicism From Arnstein Arneberg’s restoration in 1937.
