In recent decades, increasing scholarly attention has been paid to the economic and social connections between medieval Finland and Estonia, including migration from the southern coast of Finland (Uusimaa) to the Hanse town of Tallinn. However, whether and how geographical proximity, family relations, and trade networks influenced the donation and commissioning of works of art has not merited much attention. The first part of this study, based mainly on archival sources, explores whether Finnish churches obtained art from Tallinn, whether Tallinn’s town-dwellers donated devotional objects to Finnish churches, and whether Tallinn’s merchants engaged in the art trade by shipping artworks to Finnish prelates.

The earliest record of an overseas donation survives from about 1340, when Johannes Clippiator, a burgher of Tallinn, set up a sculpture of St. Olaf in Kirkkonummi Church in Uusimaa. However, he managed to come into conflict with a local parish priest and was requested to remove the statue. In 1519, Katherina Dreger, the widow of a Tallinn painter and woodcarver, left in her will a statue of the Virgin Mary to St. Peter’s Chapel in Siuntio. It turned out that Katherina was of Finnish origin and probably wished to be commemorated not only in Tallinn but also in her birthplace. At some point prior to 1514, the church wardens of Siuntio had commissioned Michel Sittow to make some sculptures for their altar. In 1515, Tallinn’s town council reminded the church that they still owed the master 20 Riga marks. Prior to 1502, a priest in Viipuri (Vyborg) sent a statue of St. James to the Tallinn merchant Bernt Pal and asked him to have it coloured, i.e., to make it polychrome. In 1522, Magnus Bock, the deceased priest of Uusikirkko Church in Karelia, owed money to the goldsmith Hans Rissenberch Jr. for a silver-silt monstrance. In 1527, the church of Espoo obtained a silver statue of St. Anne, transported there by the Tallinn merchant Helmich Ficke, who had close trade relations to Finnish towns and villages.

The second part of the article discusses the commissioning of the bellfounder Tile Klotbrade to cast bells for Turku Cathedral. In June of 1515, Tile sent a letter to Pavel Scheel and the cathedral chapter confirming that he was ready to cast the bells as requested. In September of 1515, the Tallinn merchant and town councillor Victor van der Lippe informed Scheel that Tile had already cast two bells and would cast the third one the day after. Tile died in Turku, where his will was composed either in the last months of 1515 or in 1516. One of the bells cast by Tile has been preserved and is kept in the Finnish National Museum (id 3464). The bell is decorated with the coat of arms of Tallinn.

The instances studied in this article demonstrate that there were close art connections between Tallinn and Turku as well as between Tallinn and several coastal parishes of southern Finland. Thus far, Lübeck, Stockholm, and Gotland have been regarded as the primary places where the churches of Finland could obtain works of art. However, it can be argued that the importance of Tallinn as a centre where Finnish churches could purchase devotional objects and commission various artisans (goldsmiths, painters, woodcarvers, and bellfounders) should not be underestimated. For parishes in Uusimaa and coastal Karelia, Tallinn was geographically the closest place to obtain works of art.