The leading auction house on the antiquarian market in Scandinavia, Bukowskis, was founded in 1870 by a Pole - Henryk Bukowski. At first it was a modest antiques shop and art gallery, which gained great renown and recognition in the lifetime of its founder. The company has been operating continuously for 150 years, making Bukowski's name a constant reminder of his contribution to the history of Sweden.

Henryk Bukowski was born in 1839 in the family estate, Kaukle, in the Kaunas region. He studied law at the Moscow University but left his studies to take part in the January Uprising. After the suppression of the Uprising Bukowski spent a few months in hiding and then emigrated from the country. Along with two other former insurgents (one of them, Jan Ławski, became his lifelong friend), he boarded a ship in Riga heading for Denmark and then made his way towards Sweden.

The beginnings
Bukowski’s first significant employment was at the Royal Library, where he catalogued Polish and Russian prints and manuscripts. The skills he gained in this job and a royal recommendation enabled him to start working for the famous goldsmith Christian Hammer, who was the royal jeweler as well as the greatest collector of antiques and works of art at the time. Bukowski’s responsibility was to catalogue Hammer's collections. It can be estimated that in the few years he spent in this position he catalogued nearly 60 thousand items. He also started to create his own collection - he collected, among others, the works of Jeremias Falck (this collection was irretrievably lost during World War II) and Swedish banknotes.

Bukowskis Auction House
Soon Henryk Bukowski began to take his first independent steps on the art market. While still working for Hammer he would buy and sell various old books, coins and antiques. On 22 April 1870 he received the official permit from the Stockholm Governor's Office stating that as a foreigner he could trade in works of art and antiques - this date is considered to be the beginning of the activity of his company, Bukowskis.

Thanks to the financial support of Queen Josephine, the mother of King Charles XV, Bukowski was able to focus on the dynamic development of his antiques shop from the very beginning. He became an international art dealer; he was associated with Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, who helped him to sell various items in Dresden. Bukowski also became an intermediary in selling valuables belonging to the Swedish royal family.

The support from the authorities was valuable, but the most important components of Bukowski’s great success were his own talent, intelligence and dedication. His absolute honesty and reliability regarding the prices and quality of the objects he was selling won him the trust of his customers. His antiques shop offered a variety of works of art, coins, antiques and books. He attached a lot of importance to the appearance and quality of his auction catalogues. As early as in the late 1870s Bukowskis became the unquestionable leader on the Swedish antiques market. In 1882 Henryk Bukowski moved the company to new, larger premises at Arsenalsgatan 2, where he also lived.

Bukowski and Rapperswil
Although Sweden became Bukowski's new homeland (in 1875 he received citizenship of the Kingdom of Sweden and Norway), he remained a fervent advocate of the Polish cause throughout his life, the best example of which was his relationship with the Polish Museum in Rapperswil. Shortly after it had been established he started collaborating with its founder, Count Władysław Bröel-Plater. While buying works of art and memorabilia concerning Poland, Bukowski spared ne expense. He was one of the main contributors of exhibits for the Museum, and in the spring of 1875 he became a member of its board. In gratitude for this generosity, this is what Count Plater wrote to Bukowski: "No one has added so much scientific and artistic value to the Museum as you have done with your gifts, so excellent and skillfully selected. Your portrait, sir, as if of one of the founders, will someday hang in the Museum, and your name should be written in golden letters".

In Rapperswil Bukowski got acquainted with Stefan Żeromski, who was a librarian there in the 1890s. What remained from this acquaintance is a vast number of letters, and a character modeled on Bukowski in Żeromski’s novel Ludzie bezdomni (Homeless People); he is called M. Leszczykowski (M. Les) and is a Polish merchant living in Turkey.

Bukowski was offered the position of the curator of the Museum after Plater's death in 1889, but he declined; however, he remained involved in increasing the collection and in its presentation to the public. Towards the end of his life he intended to sell the Swedish company and devote himself fully to the Museum in Rapperswil; however, these plans were thwarted by his premature death on March 11, 1900. He died in Stockholm and was initially buried there, but later his body was transported to Switzerland and he was buried in the Rapperswil Castle.

Further history of Bukowskis Auction House
After Henryk Bukowski's death his daughter Maria sold Bukowskis to a Swedish buyer. The first new owner was Alfred Berg, who was a banker and art lover and the richest man in the country at the time; the director of the company was a friend of Bukowski’s, the Swedish numismatist and art historian Carl Ulrik Palm. In the subsequent years the auction house changed hands several times; however, none of the owners decided to change the name of the company, which is now a brand known not only in Sweden, but also on the global antiques market.

Henryk Bukowski. The name lives on
A lot of both private and business correspondence of Henryk Bukowski has been preserved in the archives of several countries. On this basis Michał Haykowski wrote a biography describing the extraordinary life of Henryk Bukowski as a January insurgent, political emigrant in Sweden, traveller, antiquarian and generous patron of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil.

The book “Henryk Bukowski. Imię żyje nadal” (Henryk Bukowski. The Name Lives on) was published in 2019 by the POLONIKA Institute. It helps to understand Bukowski as a father, an art dealer, an art expert and a patriot.