From the year 1561, Clodt von Jürgensburg. Introduced to the Stockholm House of Nobility with the number 126 in 1719, later also with the numbers 53 and 17 in Riga and Reval.

According to the researcher Heikki Vuorimies, the ancestors of Aino Sibelius’s mother were Germans and originated from Westphalia in the transition between the 1300s and 1400s. The Russian researcher Georgi Clodt traces back further. He suggests that the family’s name is a shortened form of the word Claudius and originates from the time of Julius Caesar from Lombardy. From there, it would have followed the legionaries to the area around present-day Cologne when the soldier veterans colonized the banks of the Rhine. At the relevant site, there was once the colony of Claudius Agrippa. The assumption might be correct, as the name Clodt already appears in the earliest written sources in the area.

A progenitor of the Clodt family mentioned is Johan Clodt, born at the beginning of the 1400s, who owned the estate Nartelen near present-day Münster in the County of Mark in Westphalia, Germany. His son (?) Roleff moved to Reval in 1515. Roleff Clodt can be seen as the progenitor of the family’s Swedish-Livonian branch.

Roleff’s move from Germany to the Baltics was a natural event at the time. According to the Estonian researcher Tarmo Saaret, the Brotherhood of the Sword had attracted merchants from Westphalia to Reval as early as the beginning of the 1200s. 300 years later, a successful German colony existed in the city on the eastern slope of Toompea. The colony had built a church dedicated to the patron saint of trade and seafaring, Saint Nicholas.

The Clodt Chapel from the year 1673 in St. Nicholas Church in Reval. Beneath it are buried the Land Marshal Gustav Adolf Clodt von Jürgensburg and his first wife, Brita Stuart, as well as their son, Baron Johan Adolf

Roleff Clodt
Moved to Reval in 1515.

Wife: Grete von Letmaten, married 1460.

Son: Jodokus (Jost) Clodt von Jürgensburg
Chairman of the Magistrate in Reval, later Duke Gotthard Kettler’s chancellor. Foreign Minister to King Sigismund 1568–70 and ambassador to Sweden at the court of John III. Received Jürgensburg Castle as a land grant from Duke Kettler for his services on March 2, 1561. The castle was located about 80 km east of Riga. Died in 1572 and was buried in Riga Cathedral.

Wife: Anna von Wigant.

Son: Stefan Clodt von Jürgensburg
Heir to the Valküll estate in Estonia.

Wife: Margareta von Henning.

Son: Jost Clodt von Jürgensburg
Lord of Valküll and Pöide. District Judge in Uppland in 1611, later military. Colonel. Died beside King Gustav II Adolf, struck by a cannonball on September 4, 1621, when Swedish troops besieged Riga.

Wife: Elisabeth von Ungern-Stenberg, Baroness.

Carl Gustav Clodt von Jürgensburg (1765–1822)

Son: Carl Gustav Clodt von Jürgensburg, b. 1621. Soldier. Captain. Followed Magnus de la Gardie to Sweden’s embassy in Paris. Sub-governor of Åbo County in 1648, warden of the castle in Riga in 1649, councilor in Estonia in 1663, marshal in Livonia, ambassador to Russia in 1666. Died in Stockholm in 1681 and was first buried there, but later moved to St. Nicholas Church in Reval.

Wife 1: Brita Stuart, married December 8, 1648, in Stockholm, died February 22, 1668, and was buried in Stockholm but moved February 22, 1682, to St. Nicholas Church in Reval. Wife 2: Margareta Beata von Wrangel.

Son: Johan Adolf Clodt von Jürgensburg. Baron. Born at Elghammar Manor in Björnlunda, Södermanland, Sweden, August 5, 1658. Soldier in Sweden, Finland, and Livonia. Commandant of Riga in 1709. Became a baron on February 15, 1714, introduced at Sweden’s House of Nobility in 1719 under number 126. Lieutenant General in 1720. Captured when the Russians conquered Riga and taken to Moscow, where he died on October 20, 1720. Later transferred to Reval and buried in St. Nicholas Church on March 14, 1722. Wife 1: Baroness Anna Margareta von Liewen, married October 25, 1682.

Wife 2: Countess Juliana Christina Bonde af Björnö, married August 30, 1706, in Stockholm.

Son: Carl Wilhelm Clodt von Jürgensburg. Baron. Soldier. Leader of the Karlskrona Fortification Brigade in 1731. Resigned in 1735 and transferred to Imperial service. Died in 1740.

Wife in Estonia: half-sister, Baroness Ulrika Eleonora Stackelberg.

Son: Adolf Fredrik Clodt von Jürgensburg. Baron. Born in 1738. Military. Died in St. Petersburg in 1806.

Wife 1: Gertruda Sofia von Schwengelm, married October 21, 1761, in Reval. Wife 2: the former’s sister, Jakobina Henrietta von Schwengelm.

Son: Carl Gustav Clodt von Jürgensburg. Baron. Born July 25, 1765. Military. Captain of the Imperial Guard in 1797, Quartermaster General in 1812. Participated in the Napoleonic Wars at the battles of Borodino, Tarutino, and Leipzig. His portrait is preserved in the Winter Palace alongside Commander-in-Chief Kutuzov among the war heroes of 1812. Commandant of Bremen in 1813. Chief of Staff of Siberian army groups in Omsk in 1817, Major General. Conducted geodetic surveys in Eastern Europe and Siberia. Died in Omsk on July 22, 1822.

Wife: Elisabeth Charlotta Aurora von Freyholdt, married January 5, 1800, in St. Petersburg.

Children, among others:

Vladimir (Karlovitj) Clodt
1803–1882
Lieutenant General, mathematics teacher

Pjotr (Karlovitj) Clodt
1805–1867
Famous sculptor

Son:

Mikael (Petrovitj) Clodt
1835–1915
Artist

Konstantin (Karlovitj) Clodt
1807–1879
Major General, Russia’s first wood engraver, Aino Sibelius’s maternal grandfather

Children:

Mikael (Konstantinovitj) Clodt
1832–1902
Professor, artist

Elisabet(h) Järnefelt, née Clodt
1839–1929
Aino Sibelius’s mother

Olga (Konstantinovna) Clodt
1856–1942?
Painter

Konstantin (Karlovitj) Clodt von Jürgensburg. Baron. Born in St. Petersburg on June 18, 1807. Major General in Russian artillery. Resigned from military service in 1835, later worked as an engraver and xylographer. Died in St. Petersburg on November 3, 1879. Wife 1: Catharina Vigné. Wife 2: Johanna Ossipov, married November 1871 in St. Petersburg, born in St. Petersburg in 1842.

Daughter: Elisabeth Järnefelt, née Clodt von Jürgensburg (1839–1929)
Aino Sibelius’s mother

Aino Sibelius’s mother, Elisabeth (in this text, the form “Elisabeth” is used as established in Sibelius literature), was born in St. Petersburg on January 11, 1839, into the artistic noble military family Clodt von Jürgensburg. She was the fifth of the family’s eleven children. Vladimir, the family’s twelfth child, was born in the second marriage of her father, Major General Konstantin Clodt. Elisabeth’s mother, Catharina Vigné, was likely the daughter of a French emigrant who moved to Russia.

According to researcher Heikki Vuorimies, Elisabeth first attended a boarding school in St. Petersburg, but when the family became wealthy, a private governess took over her education. The most important subjects were languages, especially French, as well as literature, art, dance, and music. Vuorimies describes Elisabeth as observant, interested in everything, and cheerful. She was ready for even wild antics.

Elisabeth became familiar with Finland as a child. Her famous sculptor uncle Pjotr Clodt had bought a house on the Karelian Isthmus. This gave Elisabeth the opportunity to spend summers at Halila Court, located in Nykyrka.

Elisabeth met her future husband on her 15th birthday. Her older brother Nikolai brought Alexander Järnefelt, his fellow student from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, to the party. Less than four years later, Elisabeth Clodt von Jürgensburg married Second Lieutenant August Alexander Järnefelt. The wedding was held in St. Petersburg on December 22, 1857.

Nine children were born in the marriage, of which Aino Sibelius was the seventh. Four of the family’s five daughters died before the beginning of the 20th century, but Aino lived much longer—she lived to be almost 98 years old. All four of the family’s sons had significant careers: Kasper as a critic and translator, Arvid as a writer, Eero as an artist, and Armas as a composer and conductor.

Elisabeth Järnefelt’s influence on Finnish art and culture was significant. As a child, she became acquainted with the arts in her own upbringing environment. Her uncle Pjotr Clodt was a prominent sculptor, and her brother Mihail later became an artist and professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (See Art in Ainola’s Hall).

Elisabeth’s positive attitude towards art is strongly reflected in her children’s career choices. Through her own sons, she became familiar with Finnish student life and young artists inspired by the Finnish nationalist movement. Elisabeth Järnefelt’s perception of art based on authenticity encouraged, for example, Juhani Aho to find his own writing style.

In August 1891, Marshal Janne Sibelius wrote in his contemporary Finnish to his future mother-in-law, Elisabeth Järnefelt:

Dear Aunt! Even though I had the opportunity to thank you in person for my enjoyable summer stay, it feels as if I have not done so sufficiently. I have such fond memories of the summer. I could not believe that you would show me such great kindness…

“The Aunt” showed her kindness to the composer throughout his life, and the warmth in the son-in-law-mother-in-law relationship was mutual.