#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.

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Publications

Journal „Tyragetia"

vol. IX [XXIV], nr. 2

Bessarabian daily newspapers as a means of advertising. From the collection of periodicals of NMHM (end of 19th - early 20th centuries)

ISSN 1857-0240
E-ISSN 2537-6330

Vera Serjant

Bessarabian daily newspapers as a means of advertising. From the collection of periodicals of NMHM (end of 19th - early 20th centuries)

Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. IX [XXIV], nr. 2, Istorie. Muzeologie Chișinău, 2015

Abstract

Newspapers began to be used as a means of advertising since the end of the 19th century and remained the primary means of advertising until the advent of television. Due to short period of time between the submitting advertising material for publication and its appearance in the newspaper, advertising in daily newspapers was very eﬀective for transmitting the latest information to the consumer. Daily newspapers usually came out in large cities and capitals.

The ﬁrst daily newspaper in Bessarabia was Bessarabsky Vestnik ("Bessarabian Messenger") published in 1889 in ChiТinău by E. Sokolova. Other major daily newspapers published for a long time in ChiТinău were Bessarabets ("Bessarabian"), Bessarabskaya zhizn ("Bessarabian Life"), Drug ("Friend"), Golos Kishinyova ("Voice of Chișinău"), and some others. During 1912-1914, the daily newspapers appear in Bălți, Bender, Soroca, Tiraspol, and Akkerman.

The museum's collection of periodicals contains a small amount of daily newspapers published in Bessarabia at the end of 19th - early 20th centuries. The museum has only one issue of the newspaper Bessarabsky Vestnik (no. 1177 of November 2, 1894), two issues of the newspaper Bessarabets (no. 248 of December 19, 1897 and no. 135 of December 1, 1905), an issue of the newspaper Drug (no. 143 of June 6, 1909), 33 issues of the newspaper Bessarabskaya zhizn for 1916-1917, and 12 issues of the newspaper Znamya ("Banner") for 1911-1912. Znamya, published by M. Radchenko and V. Yakubovich in ChiТinău during 1911-1914, is actually a continuation of the newspaper Drug, which changed the name because of the persecution of the tsarist censorship. The collection also contains 8 issues of the newspaper Bessarabsky Yuzhnyi Kray ("Bessarabian Southern Region") published in Bender by D. Natenzon during 1914-1917.

The review of this collection makes a signiﬁcant contribution to the study of the history of advertising in Bessarabia under the tsarist autocracy.

List of illustrations:
1. Newspaper Drug no. 143 of June 6, 1909, p. 1.
2. Newspaper Drug no. 143 of June 6, 1909, p. 4.
3. Newspaper Bessarabets no. 248 of December 19, 1897, p. 1.
4. Newspaper Bessarabets no. 248 of December 19, 1897, p. 4.
5. Newspaper Bessarabsky Yuzhnyi Kray no. 1552 of August 10, 1917, p. 1.
6. Newspaper Bessarabsky Yuzhnyi Kray no. 1552 of August 10, 1917, p. 4.
7. Newspaper Bessarabsky Vestnik no. 1177 of November 2, 1894, p. 1.
8. Newspaper Bessarabsky Vestnik no. 1177 of November 2, 1894, p. 4.
9. Newspaper Bessarabskaya zhizn no. 208 of August 17, 1916, p. 1.
10. Newspaper Bessarabskaya zhizn no. 208 of August 17, 1916, p.4.
11. Newspaper Bessarabskaya zhizn no. 206 of August 15, 1916, p.1.
12. Newspaper Bessarabskaya zhizn no. 206 of August 15, 1916, p. 4.
13. Front page of the newspaper Znamya no. 271 of November 28, 1912.