Tannar Ruuben releases the tension of the surrounding group of half a dozen people by saying after a few moments: "Nope... it's not in that bad shape at all!"

   

Ruuben had been studying briefly the condition of Berndt Abraham Godenhjelm's 165-year-old altar-piece of The Transfiguration of Christ, which has been brought back to Finland for restoration from its home in Alaska.

   

Ruuben notes one or two small tears, a few spills of water, some fading of the colours, and a moment in the painting's history when some overzealous cleaner has tried to remove a stain and has used too strong materials, but none of these are catastrophic problems.

   

Ruuben believes once the conservers get to work, the painting can be restored to excellent condition. He should know what he is talking about, as he teaches art restoration at the Espoo-Vantaa Institute of Art and Design.

The last time

this painting was in Finland was in 1839, when it passed through the Port of Helsinki on its way from St. Petersburg to Sitka (formerly known as Novo Archangelsk or New Archangel) in Alaska, from whence it had been ordered.

   

It was placed on the altar wall of the town's Lutheran church, and this is where it will return in a year or two, restored and repaired.

The question of why

precisely a church in Southern Alaska should have had an altar-piece by a Finnish artist that was sent all the way from St. Petersburg may be troubling some readers at this point.

   

This is one of those cases where the Internet comes to the writer's rescue, as one good link is better than a thousand bad explanations, and so some links are given below.

Briefly, however, at the end of the 1830s a Finnish explorer and naval officer (in the Czar's Navy) named Arvid Adolf Etholén (1794-1876) became Governor of Alaska.

   

At that time the Alaska Territory was an important Pacific Rim trading area for the Russian Empire. In practice the real power was wielded by the Russian America Company (RAC).

   

On Etholén's initiative the Czar granted permission for the founding of a Lutheran congregation in Sitka. The first Minister to the church was Uno Cygnaeus, another Finn. Cygnaeus also makes a leading appearance in Finnish cultural history as the founder of the Finnish elementary school system, but that is another story...

Anyway, Etholén ordered

the painting from Berndt Abraham Godenhjelm (1799-1881). Godenhjelm was one of the most prominent artists in Finland in this branch during the mid and late 19th century. He painted around 30 altar-pieces, six of them with the same Transfiguration motif.

   

The work was completed in 1839 and was shipped to Sitka in the following year. Initially it was placed in the Governor's Mansion (where services were held in the early years), and then in 1843 in the new Lutheran Church designed by Cygnaeus.

The United States bought

the title to the Alaska Territory from Russia in 1867, for the princely sum of USD 7.2 million. The buyer was Secretary of State William H. Seward, and the purchase was jokingly named "Seward's Folly". That was until they discovered the gold in The Klondike, that is.

   

The conditions for the Finns in Sitka worsened and the life of the congregation began to wane. Godenhjelm's altar-piece was moved in 1873 to the neighbouring St. Michael's Orthodox Cathedral, where it remained until June of last year. At that point it was decided that the artefact should be returned to its rightful owners at the Sitka Lutheran Church. And they in turn decided it should go back to Finland for restoration to its former glories.

As mentioned above, this is an area where the Net comes in handy; the links given below should keep anyone with an interest in the subject occupied for quite some time.