Page 11 - Chinese Export Porcelain MARCHANT GALLERY 2015

5. Famille rose Swedish-armorial plate, decorated in the centre with the arms of Höpken with the coronet of a Swedish
baron, with flowerhead reserves and floral ground in the well encircled by peony blooms and chilong dragon medallions
in gilt on the flat everted rim.
8 �⁵⁄₁₆ inches, 22.8 cm diameter.
Yongzheng, circa 1733.
• From the collection of Wilhelm Montelius (1852-1918), thence by descent. Wilhelm Montelius was the chairman of
the board of the Swedish telephone company, Ericsson, from 1901. The company had an office in China before the
outbreak of World War I in 1914. Lars Magnus Ericsson’s passion for things Chinese influenced Montelius and led
to him actually asking staff who were based in China to hand-carry objects back for his collection.
• Daniel Nicolas Höpken was created Baron Höpken in 1719 and was minister of the Home Department in 1720.
While Secretary of State, he was granted a charter for the founding of a Swedish East India Company but was unable
to find the capital and the company was not founded until a decade later. His son, Anders John, was created Count
of Ulfaso in 1761. It is possible this is one of the services ordered by Colin Campbell, a founder-director of the
Swedish East India Company based at Gothenburg, when he first sailed from there to China in 1732.
• An identical plate is illustrated by David S. Howard & John Ayers in China for the West, Volume two, no. 453,
p.446; another plate and a spoon tray from this service are in the Gothenburg Historical Museum, no. 19.184 &
no. 19.221; three similar dishes are illustrated by Jan Wirgin in From China to Europe, Chinese Works of Art from
the Period of the East India Companies, East Asian Museum, Stockholm, no. 125, p. 122; and a pair of chargers are
illustrated by Cohen & Cohen in their exhibition catalogue Hit & Myth, 2014, no. 65, pp. 112/3.

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