Leading the Scandinavian antiquarian market, Bukowskis Auction House was founded in 1870 by a Pole - Henryk Bukowski. Originally a modest antiquarian bookshop and art salon, it gained reputation and recognition while its founder was still alive. The company has been in continuous operation for 150 years, ensuring that Bukowski's name remains alive in Sweden to this day and is a constant reminder of his contribution to the country's history.

Henryk Bukowski was born in 1839 in his family's Kaukle estate located in the Kaunas region. He interrupted his law studies at Moscow University to take part in the January Uprising. After the fall of this Polish independence uprising, Bukovsky went into hiding for several months before permanently emigrating from the country. On a ship leaving Riga, together with two other former insurgents (with one of them, Jan Ławski, he later became a lifelong friend), he made his way to Denmark and from there to Sweden.

Swedish beginnings
Bukowski settled in Stockholm at Köpmangatan 5. His first job matching his ambitions was at the Royal Library, where he was involved in cataloguing Polish and Russian prints and manuscripts. The skills he gained from this, as well as a royal recommendation, enabled him to take up a job with the well-known goldsmith Christian Hammer - the largest collector of antiquities and works of art at the time, also acting as the royal jeweller. Bukowski was to catalogue Hammer's collection. It can be assumed that he catalogued nearly 60,000 items during the few years he spent in this position. At the same time, he also began to build up his own collection - he collected, among other things, works by Jeremiah Falck (the collection was irretrievably lost during the Second World War) and Swedish banknotes.

Bukowski's auction house
Soon Henryk Bukowski began to take his first independent steps in the art trade. While still working for Hammer, he bought and sold a wide variety of old books, coins and antiques. On 22 April 1870, he received official permission from the Stockholm Governor's Office stating that, as a foreigner, he could trade in works of art and antiques - this date is taken as the start of his business.

Thanks to the monetary assistance of Queen Josephine, mother of King Charles XV, Bukowski was able to focus on the dynamic development of the antique shop from the very beginning. He traded in works of art internationally. He remained in contact with Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, with whose help he sold a wide variety of objects in Dresden. Bukowski also became an intermediary in the sale of valuables to the Swedish royal family.

In addition to the support of the authorities, he owed his success in business to his own innate skills, intelligence and diligence. He won the trust of his customers with his absolute honesty and reliability regarding the prices and quality of the objects he sold. The wide range of his antique shop included various works of art, coins, antiques and books. He attached great importance to the editing of auction catalogues. By the late 1870s, Bukowski's auction house had already become the undisputed leader in the Swedish antiquarian market. In 1882. Henryk Bukowski moved the company to new, large premises at Arsenalsgatan 2, where he also took up residence.

Bukowski a Rapperswil
Although Sweden became a second homeland for Bukowski (he was granted citizenship of the Kingdom of Sweden and Norway in 1875), he remained an ardent advocate of the Polish cause throughout his life, best exemplified by his association with the Polish Museum in Rapperswil. Shortly after the establishment of this institution, he began to cooperate with its founder, Count Władysław Bröel-Plater. When it came to purchasing works of art and memorabilia relating to Poland, Bukowski did not count money. He was one of the main contributors of artefacts to the Museum, and in the spring of 1875 he became a member of its board of trustees. In gratitude for this generosity, Count Plater wrote to Bukowski as follows: "No one has added so much scientific and artistic value to the Museum as you have done with your gifts, so excellent and always skilfully selected. A portrait of you, supposedly the second founder, will one day occupy a place in the Museum, and his name should be written in gold".

In Rapperswil, Bukowski made contact with Stefan Żeromski, who was librarian there in the 1890s. A memento of this acquaintance is his extensive correspondence, as well as a hidden portrait of Bukowski drawn in the novel Ludzie bezdomni [Homeless People], where he appears as M. Leszczykowski (M. Les) - a merchant living in Turkey.

After Plater's death in 1889, it was Bukowski who was offered the post of Museum director. Although he did not accept the position, he continued to be involved in the care of the collection and its display. Towards the end of his life, he carried out the intention of selling the Swedish company and devoting himself fully to the Rapperswil Museum. However, all plans were thwarted by Bukowski's untimely death on 11 March 1900. He died in Stockholm and was initially buried there, but his body was later transported from Switzerland, where he was laid to rest in the grounds of Rapperswil Castle.

Further fate of Bukowski's antique shop
After Henryk Bukowski's death, his only heir, his daughter Maria, sold the business to a Swedish buyer. The first new owner was Alfred Berg - banker and art lover, the richest man in the country at the time. The Swedish numismatist and art historian Carl Urlik Palm, a friend of Bukowski, became the director. In the following years, the owners changed several times. None of them, however, decided to change the name of the company, which is now a well-known brand not only in Sweden, but also on the world antiquarian market.

"Henryk Bukowski. The name lives on"
Both private and commercial correspondence of Henryk Bukowski has been preserved in the rich archives of several countries. On this basis, Michal Haykowski has described Bukowski's remarkable biography as a January insurgent, later political émigré in Sweden, traveller, antiquarian and generous patron of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil.

The publication 'Henryk Bukowski. The name lives on' was published in 2019 by the POLONIKA Institute. Reading this book allows us to understand what kind of father, merchant, art expert and patriot Bukowski was.