SOME EARLY FINNISH ART COLLECTORS IN THE LIGHT OF NEW SOURCES

Abstract

In previous Finnish collection studies, early Finnish art collections have mainly been observed through European examples, using German or English collecting or museum‐historical literature. The history of art collecting in Russia identifies several identifiable phases of art collecting, and breeds of art collectors, that coexisted in Finnish early art collecting. In this study, the prevailing circumstances and the collectors' archetypes of Imperial Russia, of which Finland was an integral part in the period of autonomy, are considered through previously unapplied literature of Russian collecting and museum history in Finnish collection studies. Central to this are two case examples from early Finnish art collecting, with related unpublished archival material. On the whole, some of the current Finnish paradigms of the initial stages of art collecting in Finland are questioned, emphasizing, for example, the meaning of the social network, pivotal for the maturation of the collector and for the selection of subjects for collecting.