Dinner Plate with the Arms of Colim Campbell by Cohen & Cohen from Antiques & Fine Art magazine

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Cohen & Cohen
Sold to a private collector at the 2003
Palm Beach International Art & Antique Fair
Dinner Plate with the Arms of Colin Campbell
Yongzheng, ca. 1732
Chinese export for the Scottish/Swedish market
Courtesy of Cohen & Cohen

This large dinner plate painted in famille rose enamels bears the arms of Campbell and two mottoes: Memento and Dues Dabit Vela. Colin Campbell (1686–1757) was born in Edinburgh and served as an officer in the English navy during the war of the Spanish Succession (1700–1713). He then worked for the English East India Company and the South Sea Company. When the China trade unraveled during the so-called South Sea bubble, Campbell was heavily implicated. He fled England in 1723 to escape creditors and became a Swedish citizen. Campbell became one of three directors of the Swedish East India Company (SEIC) and was instrumental to its success. On many voyages, including the profitable 1732 venture on the Frederikus Rex Sueciae, Campbell kept a diary. These recordings offer important documentation of the China trade, and show Campbell’s dry wit and eye for detail.

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