We conduct research and provide research services.
Research services
he Finnish National Gallery archival materials include historical documents, press cuttings and audio-visual items. The National Gallery also has the largest collection of images related to Finnish visual arts and artists in Finland. You can explore the materials at the Ateneum and Kiasma libraries, as well as at the Finnish Heritage Agency’s researchers’ hall in Vantaa, at a time reserved in advance.
Library
The Finnish National Gallery’s library is the largest library specialising in visual arts in Finland. The library operates at Ateneum Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. The Finnish National Gallery’s library holds art-historical source material and research literature from the 19th to the 21st century.
Photographic service
The Finnish National Gallery’s photographic service provides images of works of art in the collections of the Ateneum Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, and of materials in the Finnish National Gallery’s archive collections and other collections. For a fee, it grants rights to use images that require permission for use.
Research internship programme
The international research internship programme at the Finnish National Gallery is intended for Master’s-level students of art or cultural history doing research on the Finnish National Gallery’s collection. Through the programme, we support students whose research topics are based on materials included in the Finnish National Gallery’s collection.
Research topics for internships may also be related to future exhibitions at Finnish National Gallery museums, as long as they draw on material from the collection.
The aim of the Finnish National Gallery is to support the intern’s skills in practices related to material research in art and cultural history. Each intern is assigned a tutor, who is a member of staff at the Finnish National Gallery. The Finnish National Gallery is not responsible for the academic supervision of the intern’s Master’s thesis.
The research internship programme is one of the ways in which the Finnish National Gallery increases the recognition of its collection and its impact in the field of research, and actively partners with academia, with the aim of upholding humanistic values and promoting an understanding of the world and culture by producing new, meaningful knowledge.
Detective work on the history of works of art
Provenance research is a key part of museums’ collection activities and research. Provenance and context information, meaning information related to the history of ownership and use of a work, significantly increases a work’s museological value.
Provenance research is an inherent part of museum work. Information pertaining to provenance and context, i.e. information about previous owners and about the use of artefacts, contributes to the museum value of an object or a work of art in the highest degree.
The better an art work’s provenance is known, the more the object tells us about its times and itself and the more versatile is its use in exhibitions, publications and research. At the moment, changes in the ownership of works of art during the period between the World Wars are very much in focus. In the Finnish National Gallery provenance research is conducted at Ateneum Art Museum and Sinebrychoff Art Museum.
Provenance Research at Ateneum Art Museum
See below the list for works in Ateneum’s collections of foreign art whose provenance between the years 1933–45 has not yet been fully investigated. To facilitate this work, it is in the interest of the museums to make public those works of art on whose provenance other researchers may be able to shed light.
Works of foreign art in the Ateneum Art Museum collections whose provenance between the years 1933–45 has not yet been fully investigated:
- Chervin, Louis (1905–1969), Montreuil s/Mer, Shore Landscape, pencil
- Chervin, Louis, Shore Landscape, pencil and charcoal
- Chervin, Louis, Shore Landscape, charcoal
- Chervin, Louis, Shore Landscape, pencil and charcoal
- Chervin, Louis, Shore Landscape, pencil
- Degas, Edgar (1834–1917), Avant la course (Longchamps), charcoal
- Dehoorn, Jean (1884–1937), Still Life on a Chair, 1928, oil on cardboard
- Dücker, Eugene (1841–1916), Calf Head, oil on paper
- Falquière, Alexandre (1831–1900), Diana, bronze
- Funi, Achille (d. 1972), Lighthouse of Trieste, 1935, oil on plywood
- Gillioli, Émile (1911–1977), “Mirror”, bronze
- Gleizes, Albert, Bermuda, 1917, gouache, pencil and watercolour on paper
- Guidi, Virgilio (1891–1984), Woman Sleeping, 1935, oil on canvas
- Guillaumin, Armand (1841–1927), Commandeur Woods, colour pencil on paper
- Heine, Thomas Theodor (1867–1948), Alpdrücken, black chalk
- Helleu, Paul-César (1859–1927), Portrait of a Man, Indian ink
- Herbin, Auguste (1882–1960), Composition, 1918, watercolour on paper
- Jacque, Ch., Cock, oil on canvas
- Jamieson, Alexander (1873–1937), View from Flazwell Heath, Buckingham, 1913, oil on Wood
- Kokoschka, Oskar (1886–1980), Self-Portrait, charcoal
- Kulikov, Ivan Semenovitš (1875–1941), Sea Landscape, 1893, oil on canvas
- Kunwald, Cesar (b. 1870), Man Mourning, 1929, oil on canvas
- Lorentzon, Waldemar (1899–1984), Advent, 1933, oil on canvas
- Magnelli, Alberto (1888–1971), Composition, 1942, gouache and pencil
- Maksimov, Vasili Maksimovitš (1844–1911), Russian Cottage Interior, 1872, oil on canvas
- Marussig, Pietro (1879–1937), Landscape from Liguria, c. 1932, oil on Wood
- Meunier, Constantin (1831–1905), Old Man Sitting, watercolour on paper
- Milles, Carl (1875–1955), Struggle for Survival, 1899–1900, bronze
- Milles, Carl, Girl with Cat, 1901, bronze
- Forgery, previously attr.: Monet, Claude (1840–1926), White Horses, oil on canvas
- Forgery, previously attr.: Renoir, Auguste (1841–1919), Young Girl, oil on Wood
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš (1844–1930), Landscape from Tšugujev, 1867, watercolour and gouache on paper
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, The Scythe Man, 1876, watercolour on paper
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Farmhouse Yard, 1878, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Young Boy Carrying an Icon, sketch, 1880, oil on hardboard
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Christ at the Feast, 1880, pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Girl at the Table, 1883, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, St Nicholas, sketch, 1888, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Cossack Laughing, study for the Zaporogs, 1880-1891, red and black chalk
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Landscape, Well, pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Landscape, pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, The Duel, sketch, c. 1896, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Young Woman in Pink, 1903, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, On the Shore, 1903, watercolour, gouache and pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Adelina Patti, study, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Konstantin Nikolai Lebedev, study for the painting Puskin at the Lyceum Exams, c. 1911, pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Doctor Writing, 1919, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Woman at the Table, 1925, watercolour and pencil on paper
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Study of Two Peasant Boys’ Heads, oil on hardboard
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Carriage Drivers Warming Themselves, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Peasant Girl in a Scarf, sketch, oil on canvas
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Man in a Historical Costume with a Tiara, oil on Wood
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Christ Clears up the Synagogue, pencil
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Boy with Red Face, black chalk and red colour pencil on paper
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Man Pushing a Pole, charcoal and watercolour on paper
- Repin, Ilja Jefimovitš, Portrait of a Girl, oil on canvas
- Sironi, Mario (1885–1961), Gathering, 1932, oil on canvas
- Forgery, previously attr.: Sisley, Alfred (1839–1899), Winter Landscape, oil on canvas
- Forgery, previously attr.: Sisley, Alfred, Spring Landscape from England, oil on canvas
- Tosi, Arturo (1871–1956), Lago d’Iseo, 1930, oil on canvas
- Valtat, Louis (1869–1952), Landscape, oil on canvas
- Verestshagin, Vasili (1842–1904), Snowy Mountains, oil on canvas
- Willumsen, Jens Ferdinand (1863–1958), Woman Sitting on a Mountain, 1902, watercolour on paper
- Vlaminck, Maurice de (1876–1958), By the Water, 1919, oil on canvas
- Vrubel, Mihail (1856–1910), The Sea Princess (Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel in Rimski-Korsakov’s opera Sadko), sketch, c. 1897, watercolour and pencil on paper
Information in external services
Information on the Finnish National Gallery’s collection is also included in the following search services of the cultural heritage sector and other common search services.