Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 12. (Budapest, 1970)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Gyllensvärd, Bo: Östasiatiska Museet, Stockholm, How to Change a Stable into a Museum

BO GYLLENSVÄRD ÖSTASIATISKA MUSEET — STOCKHOLM : HOW TO CHANGE A STABLE INTO A MUSEUM In May, 1963 a new museum of Far Eastern Antiquities was opened in Stockholm which was installed in an old stable. The short story behind is following. A series of fortunate circumstances helped to stimulate the collection of Chinese objects of art in Sweden in the 1910's and 20's. One majoiinfluence was the studies by Sven Hedin, Johan Gunnar Andersson, Bernhard Karlgren and Osvald Siren. Equally important was the early interest displayed by the Crown Prince, Gustav Adolph, an interest that found expression both in his private collections and from 1907 in the support he gave to scholarship in his field. Under his patronage, Stockholm's first exhibition of Chinese art was held in 1914 and soon afterwards there had grown up a group of serious collectors of early Chinese art, particularly ceramics. When professor Andersson, after the first world war, started geological studies in China, he was fortunate in discovering a previously unknown Stone Age culture. His excavations in Kansu and Honan brought to the light ceramics from the late Stone Age; these were of an astonishing technical and aesthetic quality and explained to some extent the exquisite refinement of the Bronze Age art that followed. Andersson was given permission to transfer a very representative collection of these ceramics to Sweden. After a while the collections could be exhibited at the "Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities" created in the Commercial College, Stockholm, and opened to the public in 1929. Later on prof. Andersson started to develop the collection from later eras of Chinese history. An impressive collection of everyday articles, large and small, was built up, illustrating the many facetted bronze culture that flourished c. 1500— 800 B.C. in North and Central China with Anyang and Loyang as its centres, and from 800—200 B.C. also in South China. Particularly well represented here are the small bronzes from the Huai valley, thanks to the work of Orvar Karlbeck when he was in China as a railway engineer in the 1910's to 30's. The larger sacrificial vessels were collected mainly by H.R.H. the Crown Prince and Mr. Anders Hellstron and when the later died his bronzes were acquired by the museum. Parallel with the MFEA, other collections have been built up, principally by Osvald Siren of the National Museum. He succeeded in bringing together a representative group of Chinese sculpture, mainly Buddhist, and a comprehensive selection of paintings from Sung up to Ch'ing. Only on rare occasions m