#Exhibit of the Month

The history of silverware goes back over 5,000 years, but only in the 3rd millennium BC, in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, the first pieces of processed silver were made. From there, the art of working with silver spread to Persia and to Europe, where already in Roman and Greek antiquity it reached a high level of skill. Many of the techniques used then, such as casting, embossing and engraving, are still used today.

The National Museum of History of Moldova possesses a rich collection of silver items, which in a special way reflects the everyday life of people of the 18th-20th centuries. The typological range of objects that make up the collection includes both secular and ecclesiastical silverware: fruit vases, bonbonnieres, cutlery, tea and coffee preparation and serving sets, salt-cellars, handbags, snuffboxes and cigarette cases, candelabra, as well as icon cases, chalices, pectoral crosses, candlesticks, and so on.

Products of renowned jewelers, such as Fabergé, Khlebnikov, Sazikov in Russia, Elkington in England, Christofle in France or Norblin and Fraget in Poland stand out for their special quality and luxury. A significant item in the museum's silverware collection is the teapot on a stand with a spirit lamp (bouillotte), made in the Christofle workshop in France.

The Christofle workshop was founded in Paris in 1830 by Charles Christofle. The workshop, which was the court supplier of the Emperor of France Napoleon III, the Emperor of Mexico and the Tsar of Russia, created decorative and household pieces of rare beauty. It was also highly appreciated by the Royal House of Romania, which granted the workshop a supplier patent. In 1842, Charles Christofle bought a patent for electroplating, a technique that involved first coating a metal base with copper and then with nickel and silver. It was this technique that allowed him to mass-produce silver tea sets, which were very popular at the time. Tea, brought to Europe in 1610 by the East India Company, was an expensive commodity that gradually gained popularity. The oldest preserved teapots, dating from the 1670s, were small. As tea gained popularity, larger teapots began to be produced, shaped to match the fashion of the time.

According to Christofle catalogs, the model was produced in 1868 and fascinates with its elegance and refinement. The teapot has a complex design including a pear-shaped container, the surface of which is ornamented with guilloché in the Louis XVI style of the late 1780s. In the upper and lower parts of the body it is decorated with a border with tulips on protrusions, and in the center, it has an escutcheon with an engraved double frame. The teapot is equipped with a folding basket-like handle decorated with triple rings, and a lid with a knob. There are two rivets on the teapot for attaching it to the stand. A spirit lamp with a straight handle and a device for lifting the wick is fixed in the middle of the stand. The item has the Christofle stamp and is made of nickel silver.

The teapot on a stand with a spirit lamp, made in the Christofle workshop, harmoniously combines the value of a unique object and a sample of a large industrial series.

Dimensions: H.: 43 cm; W.: 24 cm.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Magic of Lights of Other Times”

May 18, 2022 – December 31, 2022

The temporary exhibition "Magic of Lights of Other Times" is the result of research and scientific development of the collection of lighting fixtures from the National Museum of History of Moldova.

The exhibition presents a variety of forms and types of devices that reflect the evolution and role of artificial lighting in everyday and spiritual life. It brings together more than fifty authentic objects of scientific, historical, commemorative and aesthetic value, which form the basis of the exhibition; these pieces came into the museum's collections through transfers, purchases and donations and date back to the period from the 5^th-4^th centuries BC to the 1990s. Many of these authentic pieces have undergone a process of restoration and conservation.

The exhibition takes us back to the past of this "miracle", providing an opportunity to leaf through the history of the evolution of indoor and outdoor artificial lighting by the display of a variety of light sources: hearth fire, torch, oil lamp, made of ceramic and metal. This is followed by candlesticks, which, in terms of their functionality and symbolism, served and continue to serve as a support for light, being used in church and secular environments. A candle, initially made of animal fat with a cane wick, then of beeswax and cotton or hemp thread, was easy to use and simple and economical to manufacture compared to other devices, helped to create a whole family of different lamps. The typological range of fixtures continues with a variety of gas and electric table lamps, some of which bear the brand of the manufacturer: Otto Muller, Berlin, Ehrich &Graetz Berlin, Anna Brenner (Germany), Brunner, Schneider, Ditmar (Warsaw), Triumph (France), and others. With the beginning of the process of modernization of society, table and ceiling chandeliers began to be used more and more, differing in material, size, style and elegance. Although in small quantities, professional lighting devices are also presented at the exhibition: lanterns used by miners in underground mines and lanterns of railway workers. Among the portable lanterns are those for everyday use, called "Bat" after the name of the German company "Fledermaus" that produced them, which were used for lighting at night. Lanterns played an important role in illuminating public places, initially by burning animal fat, with which the wick was impregnated, and later gas lanterns appeared, which illuminated only central or commercial roads.

Noteworthy are objects that, in addition to their historical, scientific and artistic value, also have memorial significance. Here we should mention the silver candlestick that belonged to the family of the Bessarabian writer Constantin Stamati, the kerosene ceiling lamp from the prominent politician and philanthropist Vasile Stroescu's mansion in the village of Brânzeni, Edineț district, the electric table lamp of Academician Nicolae Dimo, the night lamp of film director Valeriu Gagiu and the table lamp of conductor B. Milyutin.

The exhibition is complemented by thematic photographs and reconstructions of mini-interiors with artificial lighting.

The temporary exhibition "Magic of Lights of Other Times" can be visited from May 18, 2022 to December 31, 2022.