home  previous exhibitions The King's Table

Saturday 18 May to Tuesday 31 December 2002

Lord Rothschild with one of the tureens

The outstanding Royal Silver Dinner Service ordered in Paris by George III (1760-1820) for his electoral palace in Hanover has never been seen in Britain before. Fittingly, this sumptuous service will be on view in the galleries of the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House, a building designed by George III's favourite architect, Sir William Chambers.

The exhibition coincides with the Golden Jubilee year of Her Majesty The Queen, George III's great-great-great-great-granddaughter. Her Majesty has generously agreed to lend two splendid wine coolers, which were made as part of this service, from the Royal Collection for inclusion in this display.

A Rothschild family trust, following a longstanding history of admiration for French arts, recently acquired the service. After its debut at the Gilbert Collection, the service will go on public display in 2003 at the spectacular Rothschild house Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire

A wine cooler. The festoons and goat masks combine to create a striking neo-classical design, a central element of Auguste's repertoire.

This magnificent group of eighty objects in the neo-classical taste, so fashionable and so much admired at the time, are all engraved with the King's cypher and royal crown. The coolers, candelabra, sauceboats and tureens were designed by Robert-Joseph Auguste, the pre-eminent Parisian goldsmith (1723-1805). This is the largest surviving tranche from the only English royal dinner service to be on view to the public. No other French silver of this scale and magnificence can be seen in Britain and it will take pride of place in the Silver Gallery of the Gilbert Collection.

The exhibition will be presented in two parts: a double-sided buffet showing a massed display of the magnificent silver in five cases linked with the emblem of George III of Hanover; and a display devised by Paul Dyson of a table covered by a huge damask cloth upon which will be an 18th century placement showing where each piece of silver would have stood. Forty pieces of flatware, also made in Hanover by the court goldsmith Franz Peter Bunsen who extended the service for George III, will be reunited with the service for this display. It was adapted to prepare for the state visit of George IV in 1821, the first time in 66 years that their ruler had come to Hanover in person. Graphic panels will explain the historic use of the silver and illustrate the importance and significance of the pieces.

This detail of a goat mask from one of the wine coolers shows Auguste's mastery of sculpture and form.

The George III Dinner Service is in the refined neo-classical style for which Auguste was renowned. At the peak of his powers he made no fewer than four large services for Catherine the Great as well as supplying silver to the courts of Denmark and Sweden and two of George III's ambassadors to Paris, the Duke of Bedford and Earl Harcourt. Intriguingly the service was caught up in the later troubled history of Hanover when the kingdom was invaded by the Prussians. In 1837, at Queen Victoria's accession, the Duke of Cumberland became King of Hanover. His son George refused to support Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and lost Hanover to the new Germany. The summer palace of Herrenhausen was sacked but the royal dinner service survived by being buried in the grounds.

In 1924 the service was sold by the Hanover royal family and divided. The silver shown here was bought by Alphonse de Rothschild whose uncle Baron Ferdinand built Waddesdon Manor in 1874. After his death, twenty-three pieces passed to the Musée du Louvre where they are a highlight of the silver display.

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