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Coming up with fitting gifts for kings and princes was part of the noble art of diplomacy. The classics included weapons and equipment for horses. The pair of pistols, for example, was a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich the First to August the Strong’s son -- just 13 at the time.

The Prussian sovereigns had access to a very special raw material: amber, the gold of the Baltic. In Danzig and Königsberg, the main centres where amber was worked, precious masterpieces of exceptional artistic quality were being created that were very suitable as diplomatic gifts.

Take the hunting hanger on display in this showcase. The grip is carved from amber and represents the head of an imaginary sea-creature resembling a dolphin. The two small utility knives also have tiny imaginary heads carved from amber. The hunting hanger was a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm the First to August the Strong during the latter’s visit to Potsdam and Berlin in 1728.

The small items laid out on the plinth are quite unusual. They are turned from ivory, or walrus tusk ivory, with the exception of the cup, which is made of rosewood. Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, personally took charge of the lathe and turned these pieces with his own hands. They were his gifts to August the Strong. The ivory "sea compass", with a compass rose on the inside, hints at the fascination the sea and shipping always held for Peter the Great.

The Russian Tsar’s enthusiasm for the art of ivory-turning was linked to his first visit to Dresden’s Kunstkammer in 1698. He was especially impressed by the work of Dresden’s 16th century court ivory-turners, whose artistry can still be admired in the Green Vault today. Once back in Moscow, the Tsar immediately set up a workshop with a lathe and tried his own hand at ivory-turning. He generously gave away the fruits of his labour to his own subjects and even to other princes.