Martin-Guillaume Biennais
French, 1764-1843
Pietro Paola Spagna
Italian, 1793-1861
Salt Spoons (2)
INV-2520
Martin-Guillaume Biennais
French, 1764-1843
Pietro Paola Spagna
Italian, 1793-1861c. 1820
silvermetalwork
Date
c. 1820
Medium
Silver gilt
Dimensions
H.: 11.7 cm (4 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Charles V. Hickox
These salt spoons 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.