Polish Silver from the 17th Century to the First Half of the 19th Century in the Collection of the Hermitage

On 19 October 2004 an exhibition of Polish silver opened in the State Hermitage. The more than 60 works on display come from the Hermitage collection and are principally from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The main centers of jewelry and silver manufacture in Poland during the 17th and 18th centuries were the cities of Gdansk and Wroclaw. The earliest works by Gdansk silversmiths in the Hermitage collection date from the 1620's to the 1640's. These include chased goblets by Jakob Schmidt I and Lukas Kadau. Works by Christian Paulsen and Andrzej Mackenzen date from the middle of the 17th century.

We should also mention works by the Rode family of silversmiths: Peter II Rode and his sons Peter III Rode and Johann II.

Aside from special presentation items, the silversmiths produced tankards as well as other utilitarian objects such as dishes and vodka tumblers with biblical scenes. The Hermitage collection has works with this type of composition by Andrzej Mackenzen, Nathaniel Presding II and Johann Rode II.

Silver objects by Christian Jaske, the Younger, Nathaniel Schlaubitz and Ernst Kadau II bear a different sort of composition. Here we see secular scenes with the depiction of ladies and courtiers set against a background of landscapes - what might be called "high society in a park".

Tankards and tumblers with inlaid coins and medals constitute another category of silver objects which was characteristic of the last quarter of the 17th and first half of the 18th century. The Hermitage has tumblers made in the 1680's by Johann Gottfried Holem and Andreas Hajdt showing medals of Jan III and Mihal Koribut Wyszniewiecki.

Two works by Friedrich Schenau dating from the first decades of the 17th century are among the pieces by Wroclaw masters on display. One is a goblet with playing ivory made in accordance with Renaissance traditions. A tankard by Augustin Heine has an unusual form; the elegant decoration has expressive details - a drawing and birds in relief on the lip of the tankard.
Spoons by 17th and 18th century Polish masters which bear moralizing phrases on their handles are also interesting.

In the second half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century Warsaw was the most important production center of silver objects. The exhibition features two candelabras which demonstrate the mastery of the city's silversmiths.

The State Hermitage has issued a scholarly illustrated catalogue of the collection to mark the opening of the exhibition. This work from the Slavia Publishing House for the first time fully details the museum's collection of Polish-origin silver dating from the 17th century to first half of the 19th century. The author of the catalogue and curator of the exhibition is Marina Nikolaevna Lopato, who holds the degree of doctor of art history and is director of the section on artworks of silver and stone in the State Hermitage's Department of Western European Art.

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Georgy Vilinbachov, Deputy Director for Research of the State Hermitage, at the opening of the exhibition

Marina Lopato, Curator of the exhibition, and Georgy Vilinbachov, Deputy Director for Research of the State Hermitage, at the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition

The catalogue