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Internationell Kvalitetsauktion
10 – 13 december 2024 »
Lots to be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale Week 10 – 13 December 2024
The Scottish merchant Colin Campbell (1686-1757) was burdened with debt following the collapse of the economic bubble of the South Sea Company. In 1723, he fled Edinburgh for Ostend in the Holy Roman Empire. A few years later, he met – and was invited to Sweden, by Niclas Sahlgren (1701-1776), a merchant who had worked with the Dutch East India Company. In 1730, Campbell moved to Stockholm, and the following year he travelled further west, to Gothenburg, the premier port of Sweden. In 1731, together with Sahlgren and the businessman Henric König (1686-1736), he founded one of the most influential trading cooperations Sweden has ever seen, the Swedish East India Company (SOIC). As only Swedes could be directors of the company, Campbell was granted Swedish citizenship, and ennobled by the King. He claimed the motto ’Memento Deus dabit vela’ (Remember that it is God who fills the sails), as written on the now famous armorial porcelain service he ordered for himself.
It has been said that the Swedish East India Company imported between 30 and 50 million porcelain objects, from the founding in 1731, until 1813, when the company was resolved. The customers here in Sweden were made up of royalty, nobility and a considerable portion of the prospering middle class. A large quantity of blue and white porcelain was supplied to burghers, while more exclusive items were reserved for the aristocracy. It became common practice for Swedish noble families to order extensive porcelain dinner services adorned with the family’s coat of arms.
In the current sale, we are proud to present a comprehensive selection of fine Chinese works of art intended for export to Europe. Among these are a few rarities, for instance a pair of blue and white porcelain candlesticks in the form of birds; two ’European Subject’ plates with Swedish motifs; a painting depiting the Western factories or ’Hongs’ of Canton (Guangzhou) by a Chinese artist; plates with inscribed ’Johanneum’ marks, from the collection of Augustus II the Strong; several parts from the armorial services of the Grill and Gyllenborg families; and an unusual tea casket set with porcelain plaques in a honey-coloured hardwood frame. ■