“A Prayer to God” by Oscar Parviainen, situated behind the grand piano, reminded the composer of the death of his daughter Kirsti in 1900, when she was just over one year old. At Ainola the painting was called either “The Death of a Child”, or “The Death of a Little Child”. Sibelius called it “Valse Triste” in an interview with Gunnar Hauch in Copenhagen (1924).
The idea for the painting came in Paris in January 1906, when Sibelius played his “Great Feast” (Stor Fest), “Funeral March” (Sorgmarsch) and “A Prayer to God” (Bönen till Gud) to Parviainen after they had been celebrating several days. Parviainen wrote to Sibelius that he would use the “red-red and black-black Funeral March” and “the wonderful Prayer to God” as themes for his paintings. He carried out his plan a couple of years later and gave the paintings to Sibelius as presents. The Funeral March was eventually called “The Cortège”. It hangs on the wall of the dining room.
The themes of Sibelius which inspired Parviainen probably came from Sibelius’s attempt at an oratorio, Marjatta, to a text by Jalmari Finne. The work never developed further than a a sketch. Finne’s text mentions a feast, a funeral march and a prayer. In the text, Marjatta prays to God to save the infant Jesus, but in the painting “A Prayer to God” the person prayed for seems to be a little girl. Parviainen, who knew the history of the family, may indeed have been depicting Sibelius’s daughter Kirsti, at whose deathbed Aino Sibelius had prayed in February 1900, when the family were living at Mattila House in Kerava.
Sibelius received the painting in 1910 or soon after, and he hung it in a prominent position behind the piano. At the beginning of 1927 Parviainen asked Sibelius whether he ever actually used the “Prayer to God” theme which he had played to Parviainen in Paris. Sibelius answered that it was in the finale of his third symphony, and he even wrote down the notes in the letter to demonstrate this. The sequence in question is the final hymn, which emerges in the middle of the finale.
When the painting was taken down at the beginning of the 1990s, the text “Bönen till Gud” (“A Prayer to God”) measuring 20 x 80 cm and written by Oscar Parviainen in red chalk, was discovered on the back. If one looks at the painting at a suitable angle, the mirror-image of the text can also be seen, as a raised impression on the surface of the painting.
High on the wall, to the right of the fireplace one can see “Bouquet”, an oil painting by Werner v. Hausen (1870-1951). Below it there is a gouache which Eero Järnefelt (1863-1937) painted of his sister Aino. The work was probably painted in 1908, most likely after the birth of Aino’s daughter Margareta on 10th September 1908.
Above the doorway there is “Swans in Fog” by Lennart Segerstråle (1892-1975), dating from 1914. According to one story, Segerstråle sent his painting as a present to Sibelius by parcel post.
Below this there is another interesting landscape in oil. Axel Gallén (1865-1931; known as Akseli Gallen-Kallela after about 1906) painted it on the lid of a cigar box in 1894, i.e. in the summer after the wild Symposion period, either in Sääksmäki or in Ruovesi. The work is from the same stylistic period as two works located in the library: the fantasy landscape and the portrait of Sibelius called “Gallén’s Saga”.
Below the works mentioned above there are a couple of presents given for the composer’s 50th birthday: a bronze relief of Jean Sibelius by Gerda Qvist (1883-1957) and, on the floor, an iron-bound oak chest by Eric O.W. Ehrström (1881-1934). It contains a list of the people who participated in the nationwide collection for the composer in 1915 – almost 15,000 names in all.
In the corner of the drawing room there is a massive bronze sculpture of Sibelius by John Munsterhjelm (1879-1925) dating from 1909. Initially the sculptor made a clay model of the composer in Berlin, during April-May. He made at least four bronze castings of the sculpture. This casting was shipped to Finland in September of the same year (“83 kg bronze freight from Berlin”). Another casting is at the Ateneum Art Museum, while the remaining two stayed in the possession of Breitkopf & Härtel, Sibelius’s publishers. The copy at Ainola is easily distinguishable from the others, for Sibelius decorated it with a horseshoe he found many years later.
Behind the sofa you can see a crouched female figure from 1909. This is by the sculptor Emil Halonen (1875-1950), who gave it to Sibelius as a 50th birthday present. On the right-hand side of the window there is a profile drawing of Sibelius by Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905) from the autumn of 1904.
Edelfelt used the same motif in the large-scale fresco which he painted in the Great Hall of Helsinki University. The fresco depicts the inaugural procession of the Aura Academy on its way to Turku Cathedral in 1640, and Sibelius can be identified among the participants. In the procession Edelfelt also portrayed other friends, as well as university personages ranging from professors to the caretaker.
.The work was completed at the beginning of the spring term of 1905. Both the work itself and the sketches for it were on display to the public. The original fresco was destroyed in the bombing raids of February 1944, but the restored fresco can be seen in the Great Hall of the university.
Below Edelfelt’s portrait of Sibelius there is a landscape in Indian ink by Sibelius’s nephew Christian Sibelius (1910-1951), dating from 1943. In front of it, on the dark shelving containing music, there are ceramics by Sibelius’s daughter Heidi Blomstedt (1911-1982). Higher up on the right there are the 80th birthday congratulatory wreaths presented by the Swedish and Finnish Musicians’ Unions in 1945. Below these there are two 50th birthday presents: an oil painting by Wilho Sjöström (1873-1944) depicting the church of Lohja, dating from 1905, and a landscape of Rome by Väinö Hämäläinen (1876-1940) dating from the same year.
On the right-hand side of the window there are two oil paintings, both 50th birthday presents: “A Winter Landscape” by Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) and “Beech Forest”.by Victor Westerholm (1860-1919). Between the antique cupboard on the right of these and the vestibule door frame there are three oil paintings. The ones higher up were painted by Aino Sibelius’s uncle, Michail Konstantinovich Clodt v. Jürgensburg (1833-1902). The “Interior” is probably from 1888, but the date of “A Lakeside Landscape from Ladoga” is not known. Under Clodt’s works there is one of the few paintings which the Sibeliuses bought while they were living at Ainola. This “Lakeside Landscape” was painted by Aino Sibelius’s brother, Kasper Järnefelt (1859-1941). The Sibeliuses bought it for 500 marks (145 euros today) at a private exhibition of the artist in Helsinki, in May 1932.