Eugénie was born to King Oscar I of Sweden and Josephine of Leuchtenberg as their 4th child and only daughter.

Princess Eugénie was placed under the supervision of her senior lady in waiting Karen Anker, and educated with her siblings by the royal court chaplain dr J. G. Lundberg[1] under the supervision of the royal governess countess Christina Ulrika Taube.

[2] Anker and Lundberg were both dominant personalities, which is regarded to have formed the consciously submissive character of Eugénie.

This has been attributed to the fact that one of the teachers of the siblings was once ill with tuberculosis, but was allowed to remain in employment, which may have affected the health of some of the children.

[1] Eugénie accompanied her brother Charles to Prussia in 1846 with the thought that she might be presented there as a prospective bride, and she was given proposals from Emperor Napoleon III as well as from princes in both Denmark and Germany, but none came to fruition.

[1] She stated herself that she appreciated the "sweet, independent life" her unmarried status gave her:[1] according to the Civil Code of 1734, all unmarried women were under the guardianship of their closest male relative unless she petitioned for legal majority, and when a law reform in 1858 allowed for unmarried women to be automatically declared of legal majority by a simple application to the closest court, Eugénie belonged to the first women to use this right.

Her favorite brother and closest friend, Prince Gustaf, Duke of Uppland, died, which had a great effect on her emotional life.

[1] The crisis of her destroyed health and the death of her brother gave Eugénie a great interest in religion.

[1] She was inspired by the teachings of Thomas a Kempis, and supported the revival movement of Carl Olof Rosenius, which had been recommended by her lady in waiting Josephine Hamilton.

However, she spent little money on herself: Count Lewenhaupt noted, for example, that during her stay overnight at his estate, she had eaten nothing but cooked carrots and some boiled water.

Most of her money was spent on her charity projects, so much so that her brother Oscar II asked her to save the family something of the inheritance after their mother.

Her hymn O, at jeg kunde min Jesus prise is set to a Norwegian folk tune and was translated as My heart is longing.

[1] The images illustrate both everyday court life as well as outings, travelling and balls, display a humorous tone and has a similar style as those of Fritz von Dardel.

[1] She is regarded to have had true talent as a painter, but her social position and gender created some difficulty in her attempts to develop her talent, as it was not considered suitable for her to study human male adult anatomy: her mother refused to allow her to study nude models.

Her mother's refusal to allow her to study human anatomy created difficulties to develop this talent as well.

[1] The perhaps most known piece of art attributed to her is a porcelain figurine of a dog and a child sitting opposite each other, entitled Kan du inte tala?

She eventually stopped her art production for health reasons and turned entirely to charity.