The Wall paintings in the Porter's Lodge

The paintings on the lodge’s walls were most likely painted in honour of Gustav Vasa’s first trip to Turku Castle in 1530. We are not entirely sure who the painter was, but he might have been Ulf, a painter who worked in the castle in the 1530s. The paintings have been made using the fresco-secco technique on dry plaster. After their creation, the paintings were on display for just 20 years as they were bricked up due to modifications on the staircase tower. They were revealed 400 years later during restoration work on the castle in the 1930s.

The largest of the paintings portrays a battlefield where cavalry and infantry face each other. The soldiers are armed with swords and spears, and some of the infantry also have firearms. Copper prints of a battle fought in Pavia, Italy, in 1525 have been thought to be a model for this scene.

In another painting, a nobleman and maiden are dressed in fashionable northern German-style early Renaissance clothing. Surrounded by fruit and flower vines, “The Lovers of Turku Castle” got its name from the carnations in the woman’s hand. In late medieval flower symbolism, they might have meant “happily loved.”

The painting on the wall around the privy's door portrays a fashionably dressed mercenary wearing a fool’s hat. On the other side of the door, there is a small, horned human figure holding a mirror in its hand. Could the message of these pictures be the same as Desiderius Erasmus’: “Only madness would drive a person to take up arms.”