Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part VIII.

I'm back with the rest of the photos I took at the Hofburg Palace Silver Collection museum. The collection belonged to the Hofburgs once and now it's displayed for tourists to see and a part of it is also used for state official dinners.

If you've missed me previous posts, please scroll down to find the links to all my posts about Vienna.

What you can see on the lower shelves are table mirrors. These mirrors served as trays but also as mirrors. Let's not forget that in those days there was no electricity, lighting was done with candles and petrol lamps.

And because you couldn't light thousands of candles to brighten a big room like spacious dinner rooms or ball rooms royals and nobles had, using mirrors was one of the solution to multiply the power of light.

Silver and gold plated plates and dishes were also reflecting the light, which helped a lot.

If I were to name an item that I saw very often at the museum it would be the candle holders. There were several, as you can see that one in the photo above, it's for at least 7 candles.

More candle holders, decorated beautifully.

A shiny gold plated plate collection. I can't imagine how it feels to serve dinner or lunch from a golden plate. I don't think I would feel comfortable, honestly.

More table mirrors and candle holders.

Gilt bronze, made by Johann Georg Danninger in 1816 in Vienna.

Served for 11 candles if I'm not mistaken.

Look at the decoration of this mirror tray. It's like lace, and the fruit tray on the top as well. These manufacturers were real artists, no one can deny that. They knew their work must be perfect as the customer was the emperor, there was no room for mistake.

There were objects that I didn't know what were used for. Times are changing and habits are changing as well.

Looking at these plates and dishes, I tried to imagine how did the dinner table looked like when all these dishes were served.

Each piece carefully worked with the highest precision.

Here's a photograph for you to try to imagine how many candle holders were there, and this is maybe 10% or less as there were a lot of cabinets besides this.

Cutlery in wooden box. The one on the left was made in 1872 by J. C. Klinkosch in 1872, the other one was made in 1840 by Mayerhofer & Klinkosch.

Finally the bust of Empress Elisabeth, made of terra-cotta in 1867.

The bust shows the Empress in her traditional Hungarian costume Franz Joseph was crowned king of Hungary and Elisabeth was crowned Quinn of Hungary in 1867.

This was donated by Richard M. Murray, New York, 2004.

Feel free to read the other episodes here :

Vienna - Part 1 - Public Transport
Vienna - Part 2 - Hospitality
Vienna - Part 3 - St. Michael's Church
Vienna - Part 4 - Schönbrunn Palace
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part I.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part I.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part III.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part IV.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part V.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part VI.
Vienna - Part 5 - Hofburg Palace - Silver Collection - Part VII.
Vienna - Part 6 - St. Stephen's Cathedral
Vienna - Part 7 - Food
Vienna - Part 8 - The Ferstel Passage - Part I.
Vienna - Part 8 - The Ferstel Passage - Part II.
Vienna - Part 9 - Mozart Everywhere
Vienna - Part 10 - Sisi Museum

Useful information:
Hofburg Palace
Michaelerkuppel, 1010 Wien, Austria