Imports from Asia

Since the Middle Ages, Geneva has been a nexus of exchange and trading. Even today it is one of the world’s most important international place of exchanges for raw materials such as coffee and cocoa, «colonial commodities». With a flourishing economy at the end of the 19th century, Geneva was a transit hub for luxury goods from Asia.

Three examples here afford a glimpse of the far-eastern products which circulated in Switzerland. Locally, the tea trade was embodied by the figure of Tschin-Ta-Ni (1842(?)-1915(?)), whose shops, which still exist, are ever popular amongst Genevans today. Two large vases, which belonged to Empress Eugénie (1853-1870) who purchased them at the 1867 Paris Exposition, illustrate here the Genevan taste for fine ceramics. Finally, in the category of raw materials, a set used for the consumption of opium reminds us that the Swiss pharmaceutical industry was for a long time reticent at the idea of regulating the production and trading of this drug.

Damien Kunik/MEG

Since 1773, the United Kingdom had had a monopoly on the sale of opium in China. The Chinese Empire, which refused asymmetrical trading, had the stock destroyed in 1839. This act gave rise to many military conflicts and troubles. It resulted in the collapse of the Qing dynasty. A first international treaty aimed at controlling the trading of this drug was signed in 1912. The pharmaceutical industry's opposition was strong and only in 1929 did Switzerland ratify a second treaty devised in Geneva in 1925.

Damien Kunik/MEG