The Throne of Grand Mogul Aurengzeb

The "Grand Mogul's Throne", as contemporary sources called it, is a chef d'oeuvre of European Baroque goldsmith art. Its overall design is the first extensive document of Chinoiserie in Germany. His combination of fashionable interlacing with Far Eastern elements that can easily be applied to organize the surface of objects, Dinglinger helped forge the style of the Dresden Baroque. Today, the ensemble still consists of 132 figures and thirty-two gift items made of enameled gold. They are arranged on a silver, silver gilt, and gold stage that is conceived as an architectural feature. Between 1701 and 1708, Johann Melchior Dinglinger constructed the palace along with his brothers, the enamel artist Georg Friedrich (1666-1720) and the gold worker Georg Christoph (1668-1746). Today, the opus is still bedecked with 4,909 diamonds, 160 rubies, 164 emeralds, one sapphire, sixteen pearls, and two cameos (391 precious stones and pearls have been lost over the course of its nearly three-hundred-year existence).