Page 12 - Emil Hultmark Collection Chinese art, Hong Kong Sotheby's .pdf

A WINDOW INTO A GOLDEN AGE OF

COLLECTING CHINESE ART IN EUROPE

The sale of the present selection of items from the collection of the Hultmark collection is now kept alongside the Swedish
of the Swedish academic Emil Hultmark (1872–1943) is Royal collection in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
a reminder of the pioneering role these collectors had in in Stockholm, all similarly fulfilling an essential role in the
the development of our knowledge in the complex fields teaching of Chinese Art in the West.
of the decorative arts of China. One of the co-founders of Collectors at that time would have had very little literature
the ‘Kinaklubben’ (China Club) in Stockholm in the 1920s, available at hand to identify the items they were acquiring,
together with Carl Kempe (1884–1967) and Crown Prince and mostly created their own literature and exhibition
Gustav Adolf, Emil Hultmark was a contemporary of famous catalogues. They greatly relied on their exchanges with fellow
European collectors such as George Eumorfopoulos (1863– collectors within clubs and antique societies to research their
1939) and Sir Percival David (1892–1964) in England, and acquisitions and periodically exhibit their collections.
Alfred Baur (1865–1951) in Switzerland. While the Percival
David and Eumorfopoulos collections are now preserved in Several items in the present sale were included in an exhibition
the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in dedicated to his collection at the Royal Academy of Art in
London and the Baur collection in Geneva, a significant part Stockholm in 1942 (fig. 1). This exhibition included Oriental

fig. 2 fig. 1
The interior of Hultmark residence at 32 Birger Jarlsgatan street, Stockholm, 1936 The catalogue cover of the 1942 exhibition of the
圖二 collection of Emil Hultmark
斯德哥爾摩比列雅街32號 Emil Hultmark 伉儷寓所室內陳設，攝於1936年 圖一
1942年 Emil Hultmark 收藏展覽圖錄封面
10 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比