Ville Vallgren and Albert Edelfelt

The lifelong friendship between artists Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905) and Ville Vallgren (1855–1940) extended from their hometown of Porvoo to the art capital of Paris. Both were strongly influenced by French artistic life and found their place in both French and Scandinavian artistic circles. Although they spent much of their lives abroad, Porvoo remained important to them.

Edelfelt moved confidently on the international art scene but returned almost every summer to the Porvoo region, where he found inspiration in the landscape, his family, and the people of the archipelago. Vallgren’s flower-adorned female figures testify to the sculptor’s deep love of nature, a passion that was awakened in his mother's blooming garden.

The significance of their birthplace for the “Boys of Porvoo” – an expression used by Vallgren himself – is clearly reflected in the collections of the Porvoo Museum. Most of Ville Vallgren’s sculptures were donated to the museum by the artist himself. Likewise, a large part of the Albert Edelfelt collection is directly connected to Porvoo.