e-post

Hello,

Apologies if you are not the correct person to reach out to, I am trying to look into verifying an item previously belonged to the Sven Hedin Collection.
The item in question is “Inventory no 1935.50.0426” (https://www.bukowskis.com/en/auctions/657/1030-a-gilt-bronze-figure-of-vajradhara-tibet-circa-16th-century)
Would there be any way of confirming this item indeed was part of the collection?

Thank you!

xxx
Sales Consultant

Dear Mr.

Indeed, it was!

The Hedin-Bendix collection, as it was originally called, is today mainly found with the Ethnographic museum in Stockholm. But a part of it is also found with the old Ethnographic Museum of Gothenburg, today Museum of World Culture. A choice selection of the H-B collection was sent to Chicago together with the so-called Golden Temple for the Century of Progress exhibition there, 1933-34. Most of those items were returned to Stockholm in the early 1960:ies, but quite a few of them are still “at large” in the USA, l and probably elsewhere. Some very nice items were picked up by the Jaques Marchais museum outside NY at an auction in New York , early 1940:ies.

Until the late 1970:ies the keepers of the Sven Hedin Foundation evidently found it correct to make exchanges of objects from the S-H collections for other objects , exchanges with museums but regrettably also with art dealers. One such exchange took place in the 1970:ies with an art dealer in Amsterdam. A number of statues were exchanged for ethnographic items, an unfortunate exchange. I do not have the document at hand, but the item now up for sale was among them. Interesting to see the staggering price asked for it today! I do not comment upon its description.

You may check this link. You will then see the original information on the object at its original acquisition in Beijing
https://carlotta.tremil.se/EM/web/object/1460417;jsessionid=jEWw_Hr-e68z_tWIu6SZqJKs3VYtR9NhYaohURRn.tala2
Then in the search-box up to the right [“Frisök”] enter 1935.50.0426.

You may then see that the object was purchased in Beijing 1930-01-22 at the price of 7 Mexican Dollars!!

Best Regards, and good luck,
Håkan Wahlquist
Keeper the Sven Hedin Foundation
in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
formerly Sr. Curator Asian Collections
in the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm

hakan.wahlquistnhedinfoundation.org
http://svenhedinfoundation.org/
http://svenhedin.com/