A. Tillander, a prestigious Helsinki jewelry firm, has its roots in Imperial Russia. Alexander Edvard Tillander (age 11) left the family farm in Finland to seek his fortune. Sent by his father to St. Petersburg to join his brother and apprentice to a barber, the boy already had aspirations to become a jeweler. The jewelry industry in St. Petersburg was a big draw and many immigrants from Finland found opportunities there.

Immediately abandoning the arrangement for barber training devised by his father, Tillander found an apprenticeship with a Finnish master goldsmith Fredrik Adolf Holstenius, and served there for seven years. He trained as a journeyman with German jeweler Carl Becks and two years later with master jeweler Carl Reinhold Schubert. Working with Schubert for three years he advanced not only his jewelry skills but language and general education as well.

By 1860 Tillander was able to open a workshop in a second-story workspace with two other jewelry masters where he would build a private clientele. He was only 23. Working hard, his business evolved into a successful company renowned for its quality workmanship. Following the popular trends, Tillander produced classical revival jewelry featuring filigree and granulation and did well with objects d’art made of precious materials. Traveling to the big cities in Western Europe to gather ideas and trends to bring back to his workshop Tillander made friends and contacts through a wide swath of Europe. 

When his son, Alexander Theodor, joined the firm he was sent to study jewelry making in Paris with Smets & Fournier, and L.Lhomme, in London with Brother Gugenheim and a jeweler named White and in Dresden with Paul Kämpfe. This secured not only broad-ranging training in the jewelry arts but also life-long contacts in these crucial jewelry cities.

In 1891 Alexandar the Younger returned to the firm. Bringing with him a relationship representing a Parisian manufacturer of diamond jewelry. Additionally, he expanded the family business adding a new branch of the business buying and selling second-hand jewelry. 

Orders from the Russian imperial family were streaming in by the early 20^th century and Tillander was booming. Father and son traveled around forming relationships with gem dealers, especially those dealing in demantoid garnet. They set themselves up as demantoid dealers supplying Western Europe with this new gem. Merchandising those luscious green garnets provided a consistently generous supplement to the firm’s income until the onset of World War I. Alexander the Younger became the head of the firm in 1910, retiring his father after 50 years running and developing the firm.

A few astute moves profiting on the tragedies of fellow Imperial jewelers resulted in Tillander increasing the firm’s profits and business reach immensely. They moved the firm to a much higher profile location, the headquarters of Court jeweler Carl Hahn, vacated after the death of their last remaining member. This prime location was integral in gaining them much-increased attention. In another fortuitous venture, when Boucheron pulled out of Russia after a major robbery Tillander astutely purchased their remaining stock. The two firms maintained a long and profitable relationship. 

By 1917 Tillander was wildly successful. However, the overall misery of World War I, followed closely by the Bolshevik Revolution took its toll in the firm as it did for all the Russian jewelry manufacturers. Although the Tillanders were prepared and had secured a good part of their assets abroad the anarchy that followed the 1917 revolution proved to be no healthy climate for a jeweler. On the eve of the Revolution, they closed the St Petersburg shop. Two months after the shop closed, Alexander Sr. was attacked by brigands, he died in November of 1918 having never recovered from his wounds.

Alexander Theodor Tillander, having avoided the Revolution, initially established a partnership in Finland with Viktor Lindman. Eventually, A. Tillander was established as a family-owned company in Helsinki where it still resides today, now in the hands of the fourth generation of Tillanders.

 By hiring the son of Finnish Faberge workmaster Oscar Pihl Jr. as chief designer, a position he would maintain until 1953, the tradition of St. Petersburg jewelry lived on in the Finnish capital. ¹

Sources

• Betteley, Marie, Schimmelpennick van der Oye, David. Beyond Fabergé: Imperial Russian Jewelry. Arglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2020.
• Snowman, A. Kenneth (Editor). The Master Jewelers. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1990.
• Tillander-Godenhielm, Ulla. Jewels from Imperial St. Petersburg. London: Unicorn Press Ltd. 2012.