Untitled (Marsvin) (Untitled [Guinea pig])

Untitled (Marsvin) / Untitled (Guinea Pig) is one of the (in total sixteen) original illustrations that Martina Müntzing executed for her friend Aase Berg’s (born 1967) book Spöket (The Ghost), published in the autumn of 2022. In the book, Berg writes, in her precise and dazzlingly beautiful prose, about the dynamic relationship between humans and animals. Exploring man’s unrequited love for animals as well as the fragile and deceitful power balance that comes with the territory when taking on a pet.

Aase Berg is a Swedish author, poet, journalist, literary critic and former editor. 1995 – 2001 Berg worked for the journal 90tal, later renamed 00-tal. Between 2002 and 2004 she was editor of the literary journal Bonniers Litterära Magasin (commonly known as BLM) and she currently writes for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Berg is also a frequent contributor to various Swedish cultural journals, writing on a wide range of issues like photography, gender, prostitution etc.

Berg was among the founding members of the Stockholm Surrealist Group in 1986. During the late 1990s she emerged as one of the most prominent young poets in Sweden and has had several collections of poetry published by various branches of the Bonnier publishing house (the largest and most prestigious in Sweden). She made her debut in 1997, with the poetry collection Hos rådjur, and has, so far, written eight poetry books, including a much talked about trilogy on the theme of motherhood - Forsla fett (2002), Uppland (2005) and Loss (2007). Aase Berg made her debut as a prose writer with a short story in the collection Perversioner: 12 noveller om avvikelser, published on Vertigo, the publishing company of Carl-Michael Edenborg (another member of the Stockholm Surrealist Group). Since then, Berg has increasingly devoted herself to prose. Recent works include, the novels, Haggan (2019) and En uppblåst liten fittas memoarer (2021). The autobiographical book of essays about animals, Spöket (The Ghost), was published in the autumn of 2022.

Several of Berg’s works have been translated into English (by Johannes Göransson). These titles include Hos rådjur (With Deer, 2009) and Forsla fett (Transfer Fat, 2012). Other titles by Berg, available in English, are Remainland: Selected Poems of Aase Berg (2005), Dark Matter (2013) and Hackers (2017). Some of her work has also been translated into German and Chinese. 

The guinea pig, or domestic guinea pig (Cavia porcellus), is a species of rodent. Despite their name, guinea pigs are not native to Guinea, nor are they closely related to pigs. Instead, they originated in the Andes region of South America, where wild guinea pigs can still be found today. The guinea pig was first domesticated as early as 5000 BC by tribes in the Andean region of South America (the present-day southern part of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). The Moche people, of ancient Peru, worshipped animals and often depicted the guinea pig in their art. From about 1200 to the Spanish conquest in 1532, the indigenous people used selective breeding to develop many varieties of domestic guinea pigs, forming the basis for some modern domestic breeds.

In Western society, the guinea pig has enjoyed widespread popularity as a pet since its introduction to Europe and North America by European traders in the 16th century. Their docile nature, friendly responsiveness to handling and feeding, and the relative ease of caring for them have continued to make guinea pigs a popular choice of household pets. In the early 1500s, Spanish, Dutch and English traders took guinea pigs to Europe, where they quickly became popular as exotic pets among the upper classes and royalty, including Queen Elizabeth (1533 - 1603). The earliest known written account of the guinea pig dates from 1547, in a description of the animal from Santo Domingo. The guinea pig was first described in the West in 1554 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner (1516 - 1565). Its binomial scientific name was first used by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben (1744 – 1777) in 1777; it is an amalgam of Prussian zoologist Peter Simon Pallas’ (1741 – 1811) generic designation (1766) and Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus’ (1707 – 1778) specific conferral (1758).

The earliest-known European illustration of a domestic guinea pig is a painting (artist unknown) in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London, dated to c. 1580, which shows a girl in a typical Elizabethan dress holding a tortoise-shell guinea pig in her hands. She is flanked by her two brothers, one of whom holds a pet bird. The picture dates from the same period as the oldest recorded guinea pig remains in England, which are a partial cavy skeleton found at Hill Hall, an Elizabethan manor house in Essex, and dated to around 1575.

Martina Müntzing has a passionate, and well-documented, love for animals (Berg touches upon this subject in several of the texts in The Ghost) and has lavished her tender love and attention on several pets over the years including two guinea pigs: Gullepip (immortalized in the painting Porträtt Gulle-Pip / Portrait Gulle-Pip, 2015-, oil on panel, 17 x 30 cm) and Cheri.

Provenance
CFHILL, Stockholm, M. Müntzing, 9 December 2022 – 12 January 2023.
Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above).

Literature
Aase Berg, Spöket, 2022, illustrated full page in colour on endpaper (p. 306).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation