For four months, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden presents a selection of exquisite goldsmith art from the collection of the Bielefeld entrepreneur Rudolf-August Oetker, who would have turned 95 in September 2011. His high-ranking collection enjoys an international reputation and offers a broad overview over German goldsmith art with its various examples.
The approximately 70 artworks are mainly drinking vessels from Renaissance and Baroque and were created by famous masters from Nuremberg, Augsburg, Hamburg, and Dresden, but also extraordinary pieces are presented which originated aside from major goldsmith centres. The exhibition offers the unique chance to view these treasures that are seldom presented to a large audience. A richly illustrated catalogue published by Hirmer Publishers will accompany the project.
The curators of the show aim at examining and looking at the goldsmith works with regard to their many aspects to conceive the phenomena of this art in their artistic and historico-cultural dimensions. The importance of representative cups as prestigious object of the Nuremberg patricians will be just one focus next to the function of drinking games preserved in form of ships or windmills, which were indispensable for a court culture fond of drinking. The variety of technical possibilities not only becomes obvious, but also does the endless fantasy of the goldsmiths transpire, whose creations revitalize our imagination of a culture past.
in Residenzschloss
Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck
