Showcase 16. Gold and silverware of the 40-60s of the XVIIIth century. Moscow and Saint-Petersburg

The showcase represents artworks of the renowned European and Russian makers of the mid-XVIIIth century, executed in the style rococo.

The beginning of the XVIIIth century was the time of great social perturbations and changes in the court life, aesthetics and cultural life of the Russian people. Relations and interactions with European countries, adoption of foreign standards of life led to appearance of new types of tableware, clothes and utensils. New traditions were absorbed by the mid-XVIIIth century when the Russian nobility have conceived European way of life and requirements of a new epoch. Having enlisted the services of the finest jewellers of the period, i.e. Jeremie Pauzie, Benedict Gravero etc., Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, established a unique "foreign workshop" for revival and improvement of the Moscow jewellery-making. The articles of this period present a remarkable variety and richness of forms.

The Moscow workshops, having experienced the influence of European rococo, produced new types of tableware and interior utensils, i.e. coffee- and teapots, milk-jugs, samovars and reduced production of traditional Russian vessels and plates, from now on used as gifts and rewards for services. The main technique of rococo was metal casting and high-relief chasing. A fine specimen of rococo by the XVIIIth century Petersburg maker is the silver soup bowl, decorated with relief rocaille ornament in a form of a scroll. Its lid is covered with cartouches of fruit and flowers garlands.