Gyllenberg Art Treasures

The star of the exhibition is Kuusisaari’s “Mona Lisa”, Portrait of a Woman, a Renaissance painting from the 1510s by the Florentine artist Domenico Puligo. To mark the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death, the painting has been carefully restored. The exhibition explores the fascinating conservation work carried out on the painting and the world of 16th-century portraits of women. The work held special significance for Ane and Signe Gyllenberg, who succeeded in acquiring it for their collection only after decades of trying.

The exhibition also features several paintings by Helene Schjerfbeck, the art collector Ane Gyllenberg’s favourite artist. The identity of Schjerfbeck’s English fiancé has remained a mystery until now. In his new book, Antti Calonius suggests that he may have been the English artist Alfred Conquest. Conquest’s landscape painted in Pont-Aven in Brittany dated 1883, is now shown for the first time alongside Schjerfbeck’s At the Pond (1884), painted in the same location.

The Gyllenberg Art Treasures exhibition also features many other works from the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation’s extensive collection, only part of which is on permanent display in Villa Gyllenberg’s atmospheric house museum.