Portrait of Gustaf Nordenskióld, 23, by Frank Gonner of Durango. In the Nordenskióld family, this is referred to as “The Cowboy Portrait.” (Courtesy the Nordenskióld-Arrhenius Family)
“What about repatriation?”
Mats Carlsson-Lénart asked the question last week in the middle of an interview with me for the Swedish Broadcasting Co., the American equivalent of NPR, National Public Radio.
Carlsson-Lénart was in the United States to interview people for various stories, particularly Mesa Verde. He wanted to see the famous cliff dwellings his countryman, Gustaf Nordenskióld, studied and wrote about in 1891.
In the midst of a travel cure for his tuberculosis,…
