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Setting the Standard: Princely Magnificence in Precious Metal
Gold and silver have been the basis of international currency since ancient times. As gold became rarer, silver's importance grew: from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, no precious metal more directly expressed princely power.
Dug from deposits in Hungary, Saxony, the Alps, and, after the 1540s, the Spanish colonies in Mexico and Peru, silver dominated the European economy. Rulers such as the Electors of Saxony in Dresden employed court engineers and scientists to improve mining techniques and increase their yield. Brilliantly designed display pieces fashioned from silver signaled territorial wealth and power, and princes showed them off in their banquet halls and treasuries. Some princes dressed up as miners during courtly entertainments, carrying tools of the trade transformed by the inclusion of jewels.
Suites of silver furniture became particularly fashionable, but few survived for long. The material value of silver as currency put these objects in constant danger of being melted down and repurposed as coin during difficult times. Rare even in their time, the monumental silver pieces in this gallery are precious survivors of the expensive demands of the period. |