Martin-Guillaume Biennais
French, 1764-1843
Pierre-Benoît Lorillon
French, 1757-1816
Paris, France
Set of Dinner Knives (10)
INV-2517
Martin-Guillaume Biennais
French, 1764-1843
Pierre-Benoît Lorillon
French, 1757-1816
Paris, France1789/1820
Set of Dinner Knives (10)
Martin-Guillaume Biennais French, 1764-1843 Pierre-Benoît Lorillon French, 1757-1816 Paris, France →silvermetalwork
Date
1789/1820
Medium
Silver gilt and steel blades
Dimensions
H.: 23.9 cm (9 7/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Charles V. Hickox
These dinner knives are part of a vast service made for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister Pauline on the occasion of her marriage to the Roman nobleman Camillo Borghese, Sixth Prince of Sulmona.
In the years after the French Revolution, architects and designers adopted the visual language of ancient Greece and Rome to express the new imperial order. Napoleon, hoping to promote Paris’s luxury trades, commissioned several silver dinner services as gifts to be sent abroad.
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