From the late 1670s, the court and aris- tocracy gathered regularly at the newly discovered spa of Medevi by Lake Vättern, where they combined taking the waters with socialising. The court painter Ehrenstrahl’s image of the spa master and his sons serving Medevi’s carbonated water is, unusually, a realistic group portrait of individuals not belonging to the highest stratum of society, but has also been interpreted as representing different temperaments.