Francesco Bacoccoli Collection

It all began by chance in 1976, with a slightly misplaced majolica plate. Francesco Bacoccoli walked into an antiquarian shop on Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm. Books were fascinating, but his gaze fell on that majolica plate. It was something new to him, something different, yet oddly familiar. He negotiated the price down to 22 kronor and bought it. Shortly thereafter, he sold it for 50,000 kronor. The plate turned out to be Italian, from the 1500s.
That event revealed two things to Francesco Bacoccoli: he had an eye for beauty and quality, and he knew how to make a profit from it.
Back in Perugia, Italy, he had met Ann from Surahammar and followed her to Sweden. Along with him came a wandering, if not semi-criminal, lifestyle. For instance, his venture into selling Italian luxury cars without asking where they came from didn’t end well.
The majolica plate opened up a new world, and Francesco Bacoccoli thrived in it. Over four decades, he dealt in antiques across Europe and North America, becoming a legend in the business with access to the innermost circles of leading auction houses. Everyone seems to have anecdotes about signore Bacoccoli, including his son Tomas. In his debut book, A Sauna in Umbria, Tomas shares stories about his father and his own family, who moved to Francesco’s vineyard in Italy when he fell ill.
Francesco Bacoccoli valued anonymity, often behind sunglasses and a hat, but his boundless and impulsive personality left a mark. The book—filled with so many fantastic stories that it is destined for a film adaptation—contains this reflection from Tomas Bacoccoli: “He did and said things that most people only thought about or dreamed of, which is why many found him a bit crazy. Eccentric, fun, and boisterous. A bon vivant with a sharp intellect. Full of emotions and a big heart.”
One recurring anecdote dates back to a highly anticipated auction of two hand-drawn maps in the 1980s, valued at 50,000 kronor. "Everyone" was there, including a well-known Dutch collector who had flown in specifically for the lot. Francesco Bacoccoli took a dislike to the confident Dutchman. When the maps were called, the Dutch collector predictably bid “50,000 kronor.” After a moment's pause, a voice from the back of the room called out, “One million!” It was Bacoccoli. The bid was a bluff, but the Dutchman didn’t know that. After the stunned murmurs subsided, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and bid 1,050,000 kronor—a record that reportedly held well into the 2000s.
Francesco Bacoccoli’s specialty was printed antique art. When Tomas Bacoccoli went through his father’s estate, he uncovered one treasure trove after another: books, engravings, maps, and woodcuts, as expected, but also furniture, paintings, silverware, porcelain figurines (one of which Rudolf Nureyev and Freddie Mercury had tried to persuade Francesco to sell), unopened boxes and packages, papers in a safe revealing a bank vault in London...
And here we are.
From this immense collection, Crafoord Stockholm proudly presents highlights such as a very rare atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, in a Latin pocket-sized edition from the early 1600s by Abraham Ortelius; Albrecht Dürer’s magnificent work Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion in a two-part Latin edition from the early 1500s; and an early etching by Dürer, St. Jerome in Penitence (1496). Additionally, the collection includes books, furniture, unique curiosities, and an abundance of decorative 17th- and 18th-century graphics.
It’s a fascinating collection, and we are genuinely proud to present it.