Giles Russian Silver in America: Surviving the Melting Pot

The Hillwood Museum's Russian silver collection is the largest and most comprehensive outside Russia. Russian Silver in America surveys Russian silver production, its changing forms, styles, imagery and techniques over more than 250 years, drawing on the collections of both the Hillwood and other US museums. A beautifully illustrated book which provides a proper cultural, political and historical context in which to view this fascinating collection, it charts the history of Russian silver through the baroque styles of the reigns of Peter and Elizabeth, the move to Rococo and Neoclassicism under Catherine and Paul, revivalist styles under Alexander I and Nicholas I, 19th-century styles up to Fabergé and modernist production. Running throughout is the story of how and why so much Russian silver found its way into American collections - much of it sold by the Soviet government in the 1920s and 30s, as having largely been held in church treasuries and private collections, it was considered to be of no artistic value. A dazzling visual history of Russian silver and a vital record of 18th- and 19th-century silver production in Russia, almost none of which remains in the country today. Features over 160 pieces from the Hillwood Museum and other US collections including objects made for the imperial family and growing merchant class.