Traveling set with glass beaker in case
Samuel Bardet
1777–79 · Gilded silver, steel, glass, dyed and gold-tooled leather, velvet · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Some members of Central and Southeastern European sovereign dynasties never traveled without their cutlery set. This seemed a strange habit to French courtiers, who, during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, shared their knives at table. However, in a time when a little deadly arsenic would go a long way if mixed with one’s salt or spices, the Hungarian aristocracy had reason for their precaution; poisonings, especially by arsenic mixed with salt or spices, were not uncommon.
- Artist
- Samuel Bardet
- Date
- 1777–79
- Medium
- Gilded silver, steel, glass, dyed and gold-tooled leather, velvet
- Culture
- German, Augsburg
- Department
- European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
- Credit line
- Gift of The Salgo Trust for Education, New York, in memory of Nicolas M. Salgo, 2010
