Goldsmiths and diplomats; battles in silver between the Baltic courts

Philippa Glanville, FSA, OBE

Lord Raby’s massive silver wine cooler, now proudly displayed at Temple Newsam, triggered a reassessment of how the diplomats at the Prussian, Danish, Swedish, Russian and British courts competed to display increasingly large cisterns for wine. Its final flourish, the Kandler cistern now in St Petersburg, is perhaps the best known, but this story of costly competition, rooted in the 1690s and the Great Northern War, can now be demonstrated.

Haughton International Ceramics Seminar 2018 at Christie's