Manufactured collectables: An example from "Kuhn & Komor, curio dealers in the East"

Lyce Jankowski (1)

1 University of Oxford

Kuhn & Komor were one of the most important curio dealers in East Asia from 1894 onwards. With branches in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Kobe, and Singapore, they were a key attraction for Western travelers doing the grand tour of East Asia. They did not only sell antiques but also modern artifacts, and were therefore employing a number of the best craftsmen. This paper focuses on a collection of Japanese coins acquired by Major George Uvedale Price (1853-1929) and kept at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University museum, UK. This collection includes more than 600 banknotes, ingots, genuine coins and imitations. A similar collection is kept at the Museum des Kulturen in Basel, Switzerland. These objects reveal how dealers in East Asia answered the demand for antiques (and in this case for coins) as commodities.

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences; Art et histoire de l'art; Histoire

Lyce Jankowski. Manufactured collectables: An example from "Kuhn & Komor, curio dealers in the East". Congrès International d'Histoire de l'Art - CIHA, Sep 2016, Pékin, China. ⟨halshs-03737875⟩