Axel Enström, an engineer and civil servant, was one of the leading figures in Swedish technological development in the early 20th century. He worked for the National Board of Trade and took the initiative to found the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1919. In Grünewald’s portrait he appears as an elegantly suited man with a large, well-groomed moustache. The painting reveals the artist’s interest in Paul Cézanne’s method of building up his images with clearly visible brushwork.