Aunt Green, Aunt Brown, and Aunt Lavender

When walking around the Danderyd area of Stockholm, you’ll come across an unexpected sight: a cutout of three classically clad ladies in bright colors.

The three women are painted completely green, brown and violet. They represent Aunt Green, Aunt Brown, and Aunt Violet, three titular characters of a 1918 fairytale by Elsa Beskow.

In the book, the aunts live with an orphaned girl in a large house in a small Swedish town. The aunts each have a defining character—Aunt Green works in the garden a lot, Aunt Brown mostly works in the kitchen or sits in the salon working on her embroidering, while Aunt Violet is the “naughty” aunt who always hatches silly schemes.

The book is popular in Sweden. It was actually the first story to ever be filmed in Technicolor in the country. It was also Sweden’s first contribution to the Children’s Film Festival in Bath, England.