Amalia Matilda Gustava Mattheiszen (1826-1900) was only ten years old when her father died. Just a year later the Munkkiniemi manorhouse, where she was born and which her great-grandfather had bought nearly a century earlier, was sold. In turn, the daughter of the Helsinki merchant Sunn, was the mother of Malla's (as she popularly known) mother Charlotta von Christierson.

     Together with her sisters Malla received a typical aristocratic upbringing of which music and art formed an important part. The artist Magnus von Wright taught Miss Mattheiszen drawing for two hours a week. Malla's drawings and miniatures were donated to the museum by the famous Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela's daughter, the cellist Kirsti Gallen-Kallela-Väisänen, Malla's sister's great-granddaughter on her mother's side.