Bredberg was born on 2 September 1857 in Stockholm[1] to wealthy parents who participated in Swedish cultural life, and her uncle was the noted newspaper publisher and critic Lars Johan Hierta.

[3] At the age of twenty she was obliged by social convention to marry a family friend, Vilhelm Swalin, whom she had been observed kissing.

[5] She returned to Stockholm in 1890 to teach at the art school established by Elisabeth Keyser, but travelled often throughout Europe.

In this period she forged strong links with English Arts and Crafts Movement figures such as William Morris.

[2] Carlson-Bredberg exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.