In the autumn of 2024, Norway’s new royal couple, King Harald and Queen Sonja, had barely settled into their roles when a series of misfortunes struck the royal family. The country mourned the passing of King Harald, and shortly afterward, his sister, Princess Astrid, also died. Queen Sonja was still recovering from a lung transplant throughout this period, and on one of her husband’s most significant days as king, she could not be at his side. Her condition worsened, and the new king personally drove her to the hospital.
By late September, life had begun to return to a semblance of normalcy. Harald was settling into his working schedule, Sonja continued her recovery, and it seemed the family might finally find some peace. But it was precisely at that moment that public attention turned back to the queen in an uncomfortable way. On the 29th of September, an installation by Danish-born Norwegian artist Morten Viskum opened in central Oslo, just a few minutes’ walk from both the Royal Palace and the Storting, Norway’s parliament.
The installation, titled *The Beginning of the End*, featured life-size wax figures of the new queen and Jeffrey Epstein seated on a sofa. Visitors were invited to sit between them and pose for photographs. Viskum based the work on a photograph taken in 2013 during one of the queen’s visits to Palm Beach, a picture that had spread widely across the press in later years and had become one of the most painful images from her past. An additional detail made the work stand out: the Epstein figure bore the face of Viskum himself, as if the artist had placed himself in the scene.
Viskum, known as one of Scandinavia’s most provocative artists, had made similar works featuring public figures before, including Donald Trump. The location seemed intentional—the installation opened in the very days when the new king was preparing to open the parliamentary session for the first time in his reign. The timing was particularly striking because of how much had changed while the work was being created. When Viskum began the piece, the queen was still crown princess.
By the time it opened, the old king had died, her husband had taken the throne, and the woman in the old photograph had become Norway’s queen. The installation immediately went viral, rekindling public discussion of the queen’s past at the most delicate moment of her new life. In those same days, the Norwegian parliament was holding public hearings into the ties between influential Norwegians and Epstein. The queen was not called to testify, but her name was repeatedly connected to the story just as she was beginning her role as queen.
The public scrutiny did not stop there. The queen had been scheduled to attend the ceremonial opening of the Storting alongside King Harald and the heir to the throne, Princess Ingrid Alexandra. The palace had confirmed in advance that she would be present. But just hours before the ceremony, it was announced that she would not attend due to a respiratory infection.
Her doctor stated that her recovery from the lung transplant would take about a year. This was already the second historic moment she had missed because of her health. In early September, she had been unable to be with her husband when he took his oath as king, her condition worsening on the day of the ceremony itself. Now, once again, she had planned to appear at a major state event as queen, and once again she had to cancel at the last minute.
Several months had passed since the transplant, but she still could not maintain a normal schedule. Even her appearances at the most important events had to be called off unexpectedly. Her illness had also disrupted private plans. In August, she and King Harald had been due to celebrate 25 years of marriage, but their silver wedding anniversary had to be postponed because of her condition and the transplant.
After leaving the hospital, she spoke about how organ donation had given her the gift of life, thanking her doctors, the donor, and her family. All she could do now, she said, was regain her strength gradually, without rushing. Despite their new status, the royal couple had not changed their daily life entirely. They still lived at Skaugum, the estate where they had spent many years as crown prince and crown princess.
No move to the Royal Palace had been officially announced. When Harald and Sonja had come to the throne in their own time, they had not moved immediately either. For now, Skaugum remained home for the new royal couple. In one ordinary moment, the king was recently spotted at a Kiwi grocery store in Rælingen, on his way to the family home in Uvdal.
He simply stopped to buy groceries, and when other shoppers recognized him and took photos, he calmly continued with his errand. The troubles surrounding the queen’s eldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, had not disappeared either. After his first trial, it had seemed that the key decision had been made. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
However, part of the court’s ruling was to be reviewed on appeal, and Marius had once again changed lawyers for the proceedings. This was the third defense team to represent him in the case. The new team said it intended to present additional evidence and call new witnesses. The appeal was scheduled for the following year, which meant that the long-running story following the queen showed no signs of ending.
Not all the news was painful, though. The queen’s younger son, Prince Sverre Magnus, left for Lisbon that autumn to begin a bachelor’s program in business management at Forward College. He would spend his first year in Portugal and then continue his studies in Paris and Berlin. Over the next few years, his priority would be his studies, although the palace did not rule out occasional official duties.
Princess Ingrid Alexandra had also entered a new phase of her life. After a year of study in Sydney, she returned to Norway and continued her education at the University of Oslo. She was now heir to the throne, having taken her own constitutional oath. If necessary, she could act as regent.
But the palace emphasized that for the next few years, her main focus, too, would remain her studies. That made the situation around the installation particularly uncomfortable for the queen. She was still recovering from a transplant, forced to cancel important engagements, while a public spectacle stood just a short walk from the palace, built on a photograph she would likely have preferred to forget long ago.
Whether her past would ever fully be left behind remained unclear, but for the moment, the new queen was being reminded of it through a work of art, timed almost cruelly to her first weeks as Norway’s queen.