Dear Friends,
My name is Jan-Erik Nilsson. I live in Sweden and have collected, studied and worked with Antique Chinese pottery and porcelain for almost thirty years.
In December 2009 Gotheborg.com will celebrate its ten year anniversary as a non-commercial collectors resource and meeting place on the Internet. The story begun the 3rd of December 1998, when I begun anew with Gotheborg.com as my personal way to get to meet people with similar interests in Asian Art as I had. I also felt I would not mind sharing whatever knowledge in this area I had managed to pick up over the years, with other collectors.
Most of the initial research that went into the Gotheborg.com in 1998 was already published by me in support of the excavation and reconstruction of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg, lost in 1745, hence the name Gotheborg.com. Even the yellow background on most pages is a sample of a direct scan of the original founding document of the Swedish East India Company, published in 1731. Most of this ealier material was aimed by me to become a research resource about the Swedish East India trade in general, both material and humanistic, but by and by my interest came to focus on my own area of interest - the human side of the travels, the tracks of cultural exchange it had left and - the Chinese export porcelain cargo as such.
Gotheborg.com was then finally something I just wanted to do myself as a tribute to a life long interest. Instrumental in this was the good examples set by my friend and mentor Professor Bo Gyllensvärd, who had always listened to and encouraged any would-be collector approaching him for help.
I felt I owed something back and very much wanted his personal mindset and certainly that of many other great collectors and scholars throughout history, to be kept alive for the encouragement of the collecting interest of Oriental Ceramic Art, based on an interest in and understanding of the Asian history, its people and its culture.
In his interest in the minyao - wares from the peoples kilns - Bo Gyllensvärd was long before his time, probably somewhat fostered by his close relation to the many different white wares in the Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection at Ekolsund; the 'Sung Shards', collected by Dr. Nils Palmgren, whose publication largely fell on his hands; and at the very beginning of his career, his work with the many Neolithic pots collected and brought to Sweden by J. G. Andersson from the Yangshao and other area. Much of this showing stunning artistic accomplishments if you had it in your heart to see it.
Carl Kempe Collection at the Collection Room at the Castle of Ekolsund, Sweden.
From left to right; Jarl Vansvik, Reidun Loose, Bo Gyllensvärd.
Jacket on chair in front of two stemcups and two early Ming bowls, mine.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson
Other members of this forum have similar homage to pay to their mentors as in Mike Vermeer to Clarence Shangraw and both of us to the dear grand old lady of Chinese porcelain, Margaret Medley, to name but a few.
As a collector and an Arts student I felt lonely compared to the antiques trade. I felt that we as collectors were on the bottom of the food chain so to speak. The dealers had their meeting places and their fairs, which we as buyers did not have. So, I decided to try to even out the odds a bit, and create a place where collectors could meet on their own and discuss their side of the issues, keeping all advertising and business interests out of the way.
I had some experience in Antiques Road show looking events from museum and antiques fair events, where I had really enjoyed myself and knew how much people actually wondered about their mysterious pieces left to them by distant relatives and decorated with oriental looking figures in strange river landscapes, embellished with oversized flowers, and felt that what I wanted to do was to do these authentications in 'broad daylight' so to speak, while letting anybody who had an interest listen in to add their thoughts and their knowledge. I really did not mind listening too. However, the technique for this was not available just yet. This was the time of manual programming page by page.
So, I started anyway by inviting visitors to email me questions and pictures. I then published them one by one together with my answers, for every area where I felt I had something, however small, to contribute. To get feedback, comments and corrections I invited visitors to send emails and also opened a public Guest book.
The 27th of June 1999 I started an email based 'discussion list', initially with an organization called ONElist, which in February 2000 merged into something called eGroups that all eventually was sold to Yahoo.
In April 23, 2003 Yahoo had grown too commercial to fit our needs, so it was time to move on. By recommendation from of our member Lee Inness-Brown we integrated a very solid discussion board software of our own, which we are still on. From now on, any number of discussions could go on at the same time, members could easily upload pictures and choose which disussions they wanted to follow via email of the web browser. And best of all, nothing needed to be deleted.
Old-timers still remember with a smile the flurry of activities every new question posted to the old discussion board set off. It was crucial that any question was dealt with at once, because as soon as the next question was posted, the threads would somehow be mixed and the focus be shifted ever onto the next question.
Well into this project, in April 3, 2000, I got an email from a Simon Ng at the City University of Hong Kong, who was also a dedicated collector and wanted to be added to the discussion list. When in July the Marks Section was initiated through a donation of Chinese and Japanese porcelain marks by Karl-Hans Schneider in Euskirchen, Germany, Simon Ng now became the ideal partner in creating the Chinese part of the Gotheborg.com MARKS section. Today this section is one of the most referenced pages on the Gotheborg.com site.
A few months later the 1st of September 2000, was also a lucky day, because that was the day when Mike Vermeer of Vermeer & Griggs in Los Angeles emailed me and asked if he could put up a link to my site since he had planned something similar but felt he could as well help me out in my efforts instead of doing it himself. That was the beginning of a long and lasting friendship. In my eyes that were the 'American spirit' I had read about, but never seen in real life. He eventually joined in on the discussion list, where he has lectured on Imperial porcelain and Chinese taste, special glazes and the appreciation of quality as such, ever since.
By the end of 2003 I started to piece together all bits and pieces of information we were often referring to, and collected all this into the GLOSSARY we now have. This is by now the largest and most comprehensive on Chinese ceramics on the Internet, however many entries would do fine with a revision.
In February 2005 my admiration for Georges Bouvier and his specialist's site on Kutani had grown into an actual invitation to join forces. This had actually already begun with John Wocher joining us too as a moderator in June 2004 about a year earlier, from which time the Japanese section rapidly went up to on par with the Chinese section. I know and am sorry I need to leave out quite a number of moderators and very important contributors who like Scott, Sal, Tommy, Hans, Matt, Ian, IP, Lye, Keith, Tim, David, Sally, Sandra, Elyce and many more who have put their special flavor to the board and contributed greatly over the years, but the point is that this board is a joint effort of I think unique proportions, especially when it comes to the quality of the help offered.
About two years ago our Board archive had grown so large that it was not possible any more to run it as a standard web page. The bandwidth cost for content distribution was also getting out of hand, so from Friday 3rd, January 2006 the Discussion Board was moved to a dedicated server of its own, which eventually was combined with a structure to finance it via donations and a modest membership fee along with the original non-profit intentions of the list.
Today our Discussion Board hosts more than 100,000 messages and pictures on file and is growing with about 20,000 messages per year.
In this virtual specimens meeting where the sprits of our forerunners are clearly perceivable are beginners and experts sharing and giving in mutual respect. Eventually you will get to know all of them, with their shortcomings, peculiarities and their own brand of humor. You will also get to know whom to listen extra careful to and who are still trying out their wings. Eventually you will start liking them all for whom they are.
Old school collectors never discussed the prices or the financial value of a piece. That was considered not important. What interested them were the artistic merits of the objects, the potter's accomplishments and what the porcelain could tell about its history and about those who made and used it. I would like to agree with this view that I think is the best way of looking at the things we are collecting. If you think too much about the price, the price tag will eventually obscure the object.
All in all I think this little virtual home on the Internet is quite a friendly place and after a few months just about anybody will start knowing their way around. Usually there are always a few major disappointments and some ruffled feathers along the way, but say where does this not happen if you really care about what you are doing?
In my personal view it is always too early to give up. I think anybody should give yourselves the chance of figuring out who are who among the 600 odd members we happen to have right now. Some of them might well turn out to become lifelong friends.
If you appreciate this site please consider a membership at the discussion board where you can also consider becoming a sponsor. As a thank you, your name will - if you don't mind - be added to the Sponsor's list.
Jan-Erik Nilsson
