Continuing a popular tradition, the Rundāle Palace Museum will launch a three-dimensional Advent Calendar at the end of the year on the Museum’s website. This year the calendar is dedicated to the Museum’s collection of silverware.
From 1 to 24 December, three-dimensional photographs will show a variety of silver objects created between the 15th and early 20th centuries – chalices, tankards, boxes, dishes, stationery and toiletry sets. The Advent Calendar will provide viewers with the opportunity to zoom in and appreciate the objects from all sides, and to notice details usually not noticeable when viewing objects in the Museum’s display case. Every day starting 1 December, a new box with one item will open in the calendar. The calendar will be available on the Museum’s website until the end of January 2023.
The Museum’s silverware collection is based on sacred objects donated to the Museum by Latvian parishes. The oldest of these (also on display in the Advent Calendar) is a 15th century Gothic Holy Communion Chalice from St John’s Church, Riga. It is one of the oldest liturgical objects made by pre-Reformation silversmiths in Riga and has survived to the present day.
A historically unique item is a small cosmetic case, the work of silversmith Georg Wolf Schmiedhammer from Jelgava, which the later Duke of Courland-Semigallia Ernst Johann Biron gifted to his fiancée Benigna Gottlieb von Trotha-Treyden in 1722. The presentation of the gift is recorded in a letter from Ernst Johann to his bride: “I hope that the great Schmiedhammer was already with you and that the surprise was a success. I thank God on this day for all the good and dear things he has done for you, may the great God continue to grant you good health. When the business is over, may not the slightest sorrow grieve your heart. “Schen und liebl” (Beautiful and dear) is the motto of your heart. Since I have the advantage of being close to your heart, I count the days that still separate us and console myself that I shall soon see my lovely angel.”
Another particularly valuable object is a tankard with lid made in 1706 by the greatest Riga silversmith of the Baroque period, Johann Georg Eben. Eben is characterised by his masterly rendering of figures and perspective in a gently curving relief. His works are also in the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The three-dimensional Advent Calendars have been produced at the Museum for several years in collaboration with the Ocean Multimedia studio. Visitors have had the opportunity to take a closer look at glass, porcelain and faience objects, some of the Museum’s fan collection, lighting fixtures, small household objects – boxes, needles, glass bottles – and the finest examples of the Museum’s clock collection.