Dish and Cover

This silver-gilt serving dish is an outstanding example of the craftsmanship associated with eighteenth-century German silver. The dish was commissioned by Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as part of a dinner service for the wedding celebration of the crown prince in 1717. The original service, not counting later additions, consisted of 270 vessels and ninety-eight pieces of flatware; this was supplemented in the 1720s and 1730s. The Art Museum’s serving dish is one of the pieces added in the 1730s.

The service included serving dishes in at least two sizes. One is thirteen inches in diameter, the size of this dish; the other is sixteen inches across. This serving dish is typical in that it has a marli (ledge or border) and a shallow well. Most likely it was used to serve meats. Stylistically the dish and its cover exemplify the plainer, more massive style of the early eighteenth century, with its emphasis on line and scale rather than ornament. The marli and cover are engraved with the king’s armorial shield.

In addition to his well-known patronage of the Meissen porcelain factory, Augustus the Strong supported the leading silversmiths of his day. Christian Winter of Augsburg, the maker of this dinner service, was one of Germany’s most highly skilled silversmiths and helped to establish Augsburg’s domination of the silversmithing trade in Germany. Augsburg enjoyed this position until the mid-eighteenth century, when Dresden emerged as the leading center.