Leseprobe

8 Introduction Eve Begov | Ulrike Weinhold | Theresa Witting Introduction “Inlayed with Vivid Colors” The Use of Paints on Gold and Silver A conference focusing on a subject that has been the focus of little attention in art history, so-called paints on silver (Farbfassungen), was held at Dresden’s Residenzschloss from November 14– 16, 2018. This event, organized by Grünes Gewölbe in collaboration with Dresden’s Hochschule für Bildende Künste, marked the conclusion of research undertaken since 2015, the results of which were presented in the publication »Natürlich bemalt: Farb­ fassungen auf Goldschmiedearbeiten des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts am Dresdner Hof«. 1 This marked the end of the first part of the research project “Goldschmiedekunst des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts amDresdner Hof als Mittel der höfischen Repräsentation” (Gold and Silver of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries at the Dresden Court as an Instrument of Royal Prestige) supported by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Freunde des Grünen Gewölbes e.V. and Peter Forcart (Riehen). The goal of the conference was to sensitize experts and all those interested to tech- niques of coloring that until now have only been studied infrequently and to inspire future research in this area. Experts frommuseums in Germany and abroad were invited to exam- ine their collections with a special focus on the use of paints on silver and to present their results. There was a general consensus that it would be important to expand the Dresden framework in future. The Dresden Research Project In the collection of the Grünes Gewölbe, there are many silver objects from the late Renais- sance and the Baroque with polychromatic treatments. 2 The more or less well-maintained remains of paint applications accentuate certain parts of the vessels in question. This partial polychromy alters the visual impression of select details, granting them a new importance. Polychromy must have defined the appearance of many silver objects from the period, as a look at collection inventories and other sources from the sixteenth to nineteenth century shows (fig. 1). In particular, vessels featuring items from nature, like nautilus or sea snail goblets from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (figs. 2 and 3), were described as “inlayed with color” 3 or “brushed with paint.” 4 Although this special technique of coloring is found not only at the Grünes Gewölbe, but at many other court collections as well, it has been granted little attention by scholars. One likely reason for this is the poor state of the