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Peer-Reviewed Article: 'A Satisfaction to the Heart and to the Intellect'
A Note on Osvald Sirén’s Connections with Italy through his Epistolary
A few years ago, I was visiting the Sirén Archive in Stockholm (Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities) researching the letters Osvald Sirén (1879 - 1966) had written to the Italian art historian Lionello Venturi (1885 - 1961). Sirén was a Finnish-born art historian who lived for most of his life in Sweden. However, he worked for some time as the art advisor to the Finnish entrepreneur and collector Paul Sinebrychoff (1859–1917). His expertise covered 18th-century Swedish art and Old Masters and thus he could secure some extremely fine examples that found their way into the Finnish collection. Today the works are part of the Finnish National Gallery Collection and can be visited at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki. With this article I aim to shed new light on Sirén’s international career and the impact of his professional networking on the Italian art history scene, especially with regard to the development of Italian sinology.
Photo: Osvald Sirén, Photographer and date unknown. Världskulturmuseerna, Östasiatiska Östasiatiska museet, Stockholm.
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