Spanish painting thought lost for centuries found in Finland
The painting Saint Peter Martyr (c. 1650–1655) on display at Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum has been confirmed to be a work by the Spanish Baroque master Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra (1616–1668). Research and international cooperation have revealed that the work is part of a series of paintings depicting saints that originally belonged to the Dominican monastery of San Pablo in Córdoba, Spain.
Location unknown
While on holiday in Andalusia in spring 2024, Lotta Nylund, Chief Curator of Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum, also visited the Fine Arts Museum of Córdoba. There she noticed a plaque that presented Castillo’s series of ten Franciscan and Dominican saints. The series had blank spaces for the missing works, the first of which read “San Pedro Mártir – paradero desconocido” or “Saint Peter Martyr – location unknown.” Nylund immediately realised that the painting that had been thought to be lost was very likely on the wall of her workplace back in Finland.
“I think I know where this lost work is located: it is in the Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum in Helsinki! – Absolutely incredible! When I got home, I compared the measurements of the works and read all the research literature, and it started to look more and more likely that the painting at Villa Gyllenberg is actually one of the missing parts of the Córdoba series,” Nylund says.
Nylund next contacted the Fine Arts Museum of Córdoba, which houses six of the ten paintings in the series. The museum's reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and José María Palencia Cerezo, who has studied Castillo throughout his career, was invited to Helsinki to see the work.
Culmination of a remarkable artist's career
The series of paintings depicting Dominican and Franciscan saints marks the culmination of the career of Antonio del Castillo from Córdoba. They were originally housed in the Dominican monastery of San Pablo in Córdoba. The Spanish state confiscated and sold the property of the monasteries in the 1830s, at which point the San Pablo series was broken up. Some of the paintings are still missing to this day.
Finnish banker and art collector Ane Gyllenberg (1891–1977) acquired the work from art dealer Gösta Stenman in 1935. Stenman had purchased the painting from a gallery in London the previous year. The painting depicts the Dominican monk Peter the Martyr, also known as Peter of Verona, who served as an inquisitor in northern Italy at the beginning of the 13th century. On one trip, he was attacked – at first with an axe to the head and then with a dagger to the chest. The Catholic Church declared Peter a martyr and declared him a saint the following year. Ane Gyllenberg was not a Catholic, but a devout Christian and Freemason, for whom spiritual growth and charity were important values. Gyllenberg collected religious art, and Saint Peter Martyr held a very central place in the Gyllenberg home.
The conserved painting Saint Peter Martyr is on display at Villa Gyllenberg as part of the Spirit of the Times. Collection Ane Gyllenberg exhibition from 15th October 2025 to 15th March 2026. The exhibition presents the development of the Gyllenberg Collection. Featured artists include: Ilmari Aalto, Taisto Ahtola, Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra, Alvar Cawén, Elin Danielson-Gambogi, Magnus Enckell, A. W. Finch, Sigrid af Forselles, Reino Hietanen, Werner Holmberg, Einar Ilmoni, Karl Emanuel Jansson, Kari Juva, Juhani Linnovaara, Tyko Sallinen, Santeri Salokivi, Sigrid Schauman, Helene Schjerfbeck, Elga Sesemann, Venny Soldan-Brofeldt, Reidar Särestöniemi, Ellen Thesleff, Verner Thomé, and Torsten Wasastjerna.
