Höganäs: A Collection from Skåne

You can go back as far as the 16th century. If you settle for the 1660s, it’s about privileges for coal mining. In 1825, an earthenware factory is founded, and if you add a few more years, salt glaze enters the picture. This is Höganäsbolaget, and if you’re interested in Swedish ceramics history, this is something of a Scanian Mecca. Now Stockholms Auktionsverk Helsingborg presents a theme, Höganäsbolaget: A Scanian Collection, which through 125 lots gives us a varied, rich, surprising, entertaining, and indeed also instructive picture of what went on down there in northwestern Scania once upon a time.

The catalogue includes four of the firm’s characteristic garden stools, a “brännvinsjungfru” (a schnapps maiden) in yellow lead glaze, a lovely architectural element depicting Triton, and several rare little treats from the early 1900s. The auction also contains oil lamps, cigar cups, piggy banks, beer bottles, and quite a few figures with a comic touch, such as the “goulash barons” with their tall hats. And here is also a large sculpture by Ferdinand Ring depicting a girl whose skirt is ceramic craftsmanship at its very, very best.

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