Kings & Queens and Soup Tureens: The Evolution of The Campbell Collection

Patricia Halfpenny, Vice President Northern Ceramic Society, Curator Emerita Ceramics & Glass, Winterthur Museum

Chartered as a non-profit educational institution in 1966, the Campbell Museum was housed at the headquarters of the Campbell Soup Company in Camden New Jersey. The focus of the museum’s collection was soup tureens with an emphasis on great European silver and ceramic examples of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1969 the museum published its first catalogue detailing 82 items in full colour and highlighting some impressive provenances. The collection continued to grow, more catalogues were published, and a selection of objects travelled to major American art museums and to a few prestigious English venues. What Power & Prestige did this collection project? Who was responsible for the creating the collection; why was it formed; what remarkable objects did it included, and why was it dispersed 30 years after it was established? These are some of the questions explored in this presentation.