Minette Mannerheim’s friendship book, 1829

Friendship books (liber amicorum or album amicorum, 'album of friends') originated in the North German student world: university students would collect in small booklets a variety of poems, verses and aphorisms from their family members, fellow students, teachers and famous people they met on their journeys. On the one hand, the entries in the books served as memories and recommendations, on the other, as proof of whom the person had met and where. Images would sometimes accompany poems or appear on their own. Friendship books were very popular in protestant countries in northern Europe, especially in the 1700s and the early 1800s; their later correspondents were booklets compiled by school children by exchanging poems and paper scraps.

Minette, or Mina (Eva Vilhelmina Charlotta), Mannerheim (1808–1851) was the fifth child of Vice Chairman of the Economic Division of the Senate Count Carl Erik Mannerheim and Baroness Wendla Sofia Mannerheim, née von Willebrand. Minette became a maid of honour to Empress Maria of Russia in 1825, and she married Privy Councillor Baron Lars Gabriel von Haartman in 1831. She died of consumption at Artukainen Manor at the age of 43.

Minette had apparently received the friendship book from her older brother August as a gift in 1829 or maybe at Christmas 1828. August Mannerheim (1805–1876), the black sheep of the civil servant family, worked as an extra clerk at the Emperor’s Chancellery and the State Secretary’s office in the 1820s. In the 1840s, he worked at the Russian Embassy in Stockholm, later he was appointed Director of the Bank of Finland and was awarded the title of the Chamberlain and the Councillor of State.

As a public official, August Mannerheim was outshone by his father and oldest brother, president of the Court of Appeals of Viipuri and entomologist Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (see Artefact of the month – March 2023). Instead, he is remembered as a drawer and for his unique artistic talent exhibited in his images of dresses made by arranging pieces of fabric (see Kuukauden esine - Heinäkuu 2011).

Minette Mannerheim’s friendship book, 1829.
Marbled cardboard case of the friendship book.
Manufacturer’s paper label on the inside of the front cover (Susse, Papetier breveté, à Paris).
Inside of the lower leaf, covered in blue silk.
Water colour by August Mannerheim of two women.
Dedication of the friendship book by August Mannerheim to Minette.

Photos: Ilari Järvinen, Finnish Heritage Agency.

The friendship book was produced by Susse, a well-known producer of paper goods in Paris in the era, established in 1758 (in the 1800s the company went into bronze casting (!)). The book is likely of the finest quality you could get at the time: the dark purple leather-bound book is decorated with a letterpressed neo-Gothic motif and the inside covers and endpapers are covered with blue silk. The cover is protected by a marbled cardboard case. The leaves of the book are made with white and coloured paper, and August has, indeed, used the colour scheme to create different backdrops for scenes.

The book contains only five poems in French and Swedish, dated 1829–1830, which have only been signed with a first name or initials – Minette would have known who the poems were written by. The book also contain three loose leaves, one of which bears an earlier date from 1826. One of the poems dated 28 December 1829 is signed by F…..c A…..ff, who could be Fredrik Aminoff (1807–1880), who was a judicial trainee at the Court of Appeals of Turku at the time. But who is A: H…..g., who is Marie? There are a remarkably small number of poems, which raises the question whether Minette had very few friends or whether she just did not want to add anything more to her book. Minette was part of the social scene in Turku, meaning that she was not devoid of social interaction. As if to make up for the small number of poems and aphorisms written by her friends, August has painted several images in the book (the book has 41 pages, seven of which contain watercolours by August). One of the undated poems is possibly signed by the French writer Xavier Marmier (1808–1892), who in the summer of 1842 travelled through Turku and Helsinki to St. Petersburg.

August Mannerheim's many, slightly naive but vibrant watercolours of the people within the family and their social circle provide an attractive peek at the fashions, everyday life and pastimes of the gentry in the mid-1800s. The people in the watercolours in Minette’s book are depicted with their backs to the viewer, which is typical of August Mannerheim. Given that Minette’s book was a private album of friends, it is likely that the people dressed in fashionable outfits and uniforms are her family members. The couple playing cards are undoubtedly Minette’s parents, Carl Erik and Sofie, and the man in a blue coat examining an insect in the middle of the same image is her brother, Carl Gustaf; the uniformed man feeding a dog may be her younger brother, Fridolf. One of the images in the book is most likely Minette; maybe the lone piano player or the character wearing a fashionable dress and an elaborate hairstyle, while trying to catch a butterfly.

Jouni Kuurne