About this artwork
These tablespoons are part of a vast service made for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister Pauline on the occasion of her marriage to the Roman nobleman Camillo Borghese, Sixth Prince of Sulmona.
In the years after the French Revolution, architects and designers adopted the visual language of ancient Greece and Rome to express the new imperial order. Napoleon, hoping to promote Paris’s luxury trades, commissioned several silver dinner services as gifts to be sent abroad.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Applied Arts of Europe
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Artist
- Martin-Guillaume Biennais
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Title
- Set of Tablespoons (14)
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Place
- Paris (Object made in)
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Date
- 1789–1820
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Medium
- Silver gilt
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Dimensions
- H.: 21.6 cm (8 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Mrs. Charles V. Hickox
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Reference Number
- 1966.116k-x
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/241988/manifest.json