Portrait of Mrs Bertha Stenman

Mrs. Bertha Stenman's portrait is an oil work painted on canvas by Jalmari Ruokokoski (1886–1936) in 1913, 67×68 cm. The Ateneum Art Museum bought it for its collections in the year the painting was completed in 1913.

Jalmari Ruokokoski, a shoemaker who was born and raised in St. Petersburg, gave insight into the artist's enthusiasm for the art of impressionists and Toulouse-Lautrec. Similarly, an exhibition of Norwegian art held in Helsinki in 1911 gave Ruokokoski more confidence and the colourfulness of his art increased.

Travelling to Denmark in 1912 was significant for Ruokokoski, he travelled there twice in the same year. In Denmark and immediately afterwards in Helsinki, Ruokokoski painted nearly 60 paintings in five weeks. He exhibited them in the Great Hall of the Ateneum in a joint exhibition with William Lönnberg. One of the paintings was this portrait, which depicts the wife of art dealer Gösta Stenman, Bertha. For Ruokokoski, the exhibition was a great bestseller, although it is said that it put him in a spiral of alcoholism that lasted once and for all until 1920.