[1] He was the son of Finnish national epic poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg.

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and with sculptor Carl Eneas Sjöstrand.

[1] After periods living and working in Rome (1862–1876) and Paris (1876–1893),[1][3] Runeberg produced many of Helsinki's best-known examples of monumental public art.

Notably, the figure representing Law is a version of the Suomi-neito, the Finnish maiden, here cloaked in bearskin.

These include the bust of Ellan de la Chapelle in Paris in 1880, who became the wife of artist Albert Edelfelt in 1888.