A Swedish word the world is about to discover.
Long before Swedish design became known around the world, it already lived on the walls of Swedish homes. These were bonader.
Original wall textiles filled with colour, craftsmanship, words, humour, wishes and everyday wisdom. Some were embroidered, others painted, woven or printed. Each was created to bring beauty, personality and meaning into the home.
Once part of a Swedish home.
Now ready to become part of yours.
Genuine originals.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”
For generations, many bonader were created, chosen, cared for and passed on by women. They carried more than words. They carried memories, values, hopes and the voices of the women who lived with them.
A female heritage, preserved in cloth.
II · Current curation
Each piece has hung in a Swedish home. Documented, numbered, and handmade.
Each piece is sold as seen. To purchase or ask questions, email hello@bonad.store. Consumers in the EU have a statutory 14-day right of withdrawal; outside the EU, all sales are final.
Read the full purchase policy →Brand story
BONAD is a little-known but remarkable part of Sweden’s cultural and design heritage.
Long before modern Swedish design became internationally recognised, bonader brought colour, typography, craftsmanship and meaning into ordinary Swedish homes.
They were not created for museums.
They were created to be lived with.
They hung above beds, kitchen tables and sofas. They welcomed guests, offered blessings, expressed humour and reminded families of the values and words they wanted to live by. Many were made, selected, cared for and passed on by women. In this way, bonader became part of a female tradition that moved through homes, friendships and generations. Today, their combination of textiles, lettering, illustration and Swedish folk art feels unexpectedly modern. Hang a BONAD above a dining table, beside contemporary art, in a hallway, bedroom or country house. It creates a connection between Swedish history and the home of today.
This is not a reproduction.
It is not inspired by Swedish history.
It is Swedish history.
BONAD — an original piece of Sweden for your home.
A Swedish bonad is a traditional decorative wall textile or wall hanging from Sweden.
Bonader have appeared in Swedish homes since at least the early 19th century. They may be embroidered, painted, woven or printed on linen, cotton and other textiles.
Many Swedish bonader feature sayings, blessings, flowers, domestic scenes, humour and words of everyday wisdom. They were created to decorate the home while also expressing values, hopes and messages for the people living there.
Bonader are part of Sweden’s folk-art and design heritage. They combine textile craft, typography, illustration and domestic history in a form that still feels relevant in contemporary interiors.
Many bonader were created, selected, cared for and passed on by women. They often travelled from mother to daughter, from grandmother to granddaughter or between female friends.
Every BONAD in our collection is an authentic Swedish original sourced in Sweden. Each piece is individually examined, documented and numbered.
IV · In situ
Private residence · Uppland
The archive, 1820 — 1985
Every BONAD is dated to the era it comes from. Our archive spans the 1820s to the 1980s — five generations of Swedish wall textiles, from hand-spun linen samplers to the printed cotton and bold embroidery of the folkhem and Colourful Sweden.
From the 1820s to the 1980s, Swedish women stitched, painted and printed words onto linen and cotton. The archive is divided into four chapters: the Antique years of hand-spun linen and biblical samplers; the Swedish Home era of early 20th-century painted and embroidered bonader; the Folkhem decades when the People's Home brought poetry to every wall; and the Colourful Sweden of the 1970s, the last generation to embroider before wallpaper took over.
And the bonad was always inheritance. It passed from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, bride to bride — a textile carried in female hands across generations. To buy one now is not to buy décor. It is to become the next hand in a chain that began before Sweden was Sweden.
Browse the archive's decades
Sources: Nordiska museet, Kulturen i Lund, Hemslöjden.
Long before the bonad hung in a farmhouse, it hung in a church.
A tightly regional folk-art tradition, produced by named painters for named households.
A second painted tradition, further north, with its own flowering ornament.
Biblical narrative dressed in Swedish peasant clothing.
The bonad was not permanent decoration — it was a seasonal event.
The painted bonad was mostly a male trade. The stitched bonad was overwhelmingly women's work.
The embroidered bonad is a mirror of everyday values, in words as much as in pictures.
The embroidered text-bonad was born in the same decades as Jugend — the new art that swept Sweden around 1900.
The tradition was almost lost before it was catalogued.
Duty, contentment, gratitude and God — and, hidden among them, verses from popular songs.
V · The Bonad Society
Members of The Bonad Society receive advance viewing of new acquisitions forty-eight hours before public release, invitations to private drops, and the annual printed index of the archive.
VI · Consign an original
We are always looking for genuine Swedish wall textiles — embroidered, woven, painted or printed — from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Tell us what you have and we will get back to you.