The Finnish painter Gunnar Fredrik Berndtson came to Paris in 1876 and attended the École des Beaux-Arts. He was a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) (Bénézit, 2006, p. 283).
In 1882 and 1883 he was in Egypt as a correspondent of the Monde Illustré (Bénézit, 2006, p. 283). His passage to Cairo was significantly smoothed by an offer from Baron Delort de Gléon (1843–1899) to use the studio in the garden of his palace (Heikka, 2017, p. 7).
He received commissions for portraits in both Cairo and Alexandria from the Ottoman elite, Jewish merchant families, and Frenchmen, all of whom were more or less acquaintances and business partners of Octave Borelli (1849–1911) and Delort de Gléon (Heikka, 2017, p. 12).
In Cairo Berndtson met the Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl (1853–1904), who was following Gaston Maspero (1846–1916) on an expedition to Upper Egypt, where Maspero was continuing the work of Auguste Mariette (1821–1881) (Heikka, 2017, p. 15).
Delort de Gléon, Ambroise Baudry (1838–1906) and Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831-1905) were all known as 'connoisseurs' and collectors who had a special interest in the Mamluk era and the Mamluk architecture of Cairo, reflected in the architecture and the objects they collected for their homes (Heikka, 2017, p. 15).
Berndtson exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris, where he won a silver medal in 1889 (Bénézit, 2006, p. 283). He returned from Egypt to Finland as he was terminally ill, and from 1890 to 1892 illustrated books and taught at the drawing school of the Finnish art association (Bénézit, 2006, p. 283).

Bénézit, E. (ed.) (2006). Berndtson, Gunnar Fredrik. In Dictionary of artists (Vol. 2, p. 283). Paris: Gründ.

Heikka, E. (2017). Layers of Fantasy – Gunnar Berndtson’s Almée. In FNG Research Issue No. 5/2017, pp. 1-28. https://fngresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/fngr_2017-5_heikka_article1.pdf