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Exhibitions :::
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| Home About the Museum Exhibitions Events Collections Departments Manak's House Visit us Contact Guest Book Sadržaj - Content |
Silverware
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The Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade holds a collection of silver objects
made, as determined in the course of the museum work and study, in
Western, Northern and Central Europe in the eighteenth, nineteenth and
twentieth century. These are art objects made of silver and used at homes; parts of the household goods and silver tableware, representing objects for the decoration of houses and objects for use in everyday life: plates, saucers, trays, pitchers, teapots, sugar bowls, saltcellars, bowls, vases, goblets, coasters, spoons for berries, tea and salt, forks, knives, spatulas, forks and knives for cakes. In addition to these, there are a number of souvenir-spoons that are decorated with: sacred motifs, floral ornaments, figures and portraits of people (those of French statesman Georges Clemenceau), coats of arms and symbols of cities, architecture, etc.  The objects belong to the collection of urban household goods, i.e. dishes; the quality of craft and art design is exquisite, and they were made outside the territory of our country and belong to the European, i.e. world cultural heritage. They were made in the famous workshops and factories of silversmiths and goldsmiths of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century in France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Austria-Hungary, Poland and other European countries. The study and museum treatment of these art objects, their identification, determination of origin and countries in which they had been made, as well as the typology of objects, were performed on the basis of specialized professional foreign literature and literature of some of our experts. During the identification of stamps, in case of damaged or illegible stamps, relevant were: form, function and purpose of an object, the material of which objects are made (purity of silver), the artistic features of an object. The comparative method was applied to the study of objects from the museum collections of certain European and our museums on the basis of literature, data and personal professional experience. Artistic features of these objects are reflected in the harmonious relation of sculpturality, fineness of materials, their beauty and function. In addition to their features, some details of their form and use value of objects themselves, the historical context is very important for the thorough study of silver objects. It was not our wish to allow the lack of documentary information about these objects to lessen their true cultural, historical and artistic value and reduce them to simple value of material of which they are made, and we tried to revive the historical periods during which such items were used, and to store them in houses and palaces of citizens and nobles who used them. Descriptions of significant historical banquets provide a multitude of data and information on the use of silverware, and enable us to place certain objects in the historical context by determining their function, purpose and role. |
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The survival of silverware through the world history was very
compromised because silver, being a precious metal, could be remelted in
mints, and allowed individuals to solve financial problems by remelting
silverware, which is what even states themselves did in certain
historical situations due to wars and conflicts. Various wars permeated the history of Europe in which many collections of European rulers, as well as private collections of silverware, were devastated. Many instances when silver was remelted were imposed by the current fashion, changes in tastes, uses, habits, or because of changes in the social order. Disappearance of silver tableware in Europe differs from country to country, depending on the historical, political, economic and artistic conditions and characteristics. In some European countries with the art and craft tradition, more favorable historical and geographical features in terms of a small number of conflicts, as well as isolation from other countries (England), a considerable quantity of silverware has been preserved, but that is not the case in most European countries. |
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France and its artistic metropolis of Paris lost the vast artistic
heritage of silverware due to wars and the fact that silver was remelted
into money in crises by order of the government and because of changes
in fashion that was more pronounced in France than anywhere else. The
influence of the French school of silver had a crucial importance for
all other European countries, especially in Holland, Flanders and
Sweden. Silverware preserved in France cannot describe the real
importance and greatness of the luxurious and vibrant art of silverware. The exhibition presents ninety-eight exhibits (cataloging units), or one hundred thirty-seven objects, from the fund of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, of which forty-three pieces of artistic silverware bear different French state and other stamps. |
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The museum objects of silver, presented at the
exhibition, have never been exhibited before, so that for the first
time, the professional and cultural public has the opportunity to see
the representative silver showpieces. |
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We believe it to be the great cultural wealth that the silverware made in the countries of Western, Northern and Central Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth century and belonging to the world cultural heritage, is stored in the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. |
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