Link only available on sub pages

Johann Melchior Dinglinger‘s Golden Coffee Service is one of the highlights of any tour of the Green Vault. The materials alone are staggering: gold, silver-gilt, ivory and more than five-and-a-half thousand diamonds! The set consists of no less than forty-five pieces – jugs, cups and saucers, all with the finest enamel work – and the jeweller Dinglinger made it for his new master, August the Strong, at his own expense. He and his two brothers and two sons worked on it for four long years.

Tea and coffee had only been introduced to Europe in the early eighteenth century – and were at the height of fashion. However, this coffee service was never actually used.  Frankly, you would burn yourself if you tried to drink something hot out of one of these cups! But that wasn’t their purpose. Instead, the service was put on display as a reflection of August the Strong’s own magnificence – he had just recently been crowned King of Poland – and as evidence of the high standards of Saxony’s jewellers.

It also documents the emergence a new style of dining culture. The rich and powerful now decorated their tables with elaborate centre-pieces. The aim was to captivate not just the sense of smell and taste of one’s guests, but also their visual sense.  This is one of the earliest examples.

Dinglinger’s Golden Coffee Service is an impressive example of inventiveness and craftsmanship within strict limits. The simple pyramid form is filled with intriguing shapes and colours. Individual pieces of the service are based on objects made during the high Baroque period and Classical Antiquity – as well as chinoiserie, ornaments in the Chinese style, which August the Strong particularly loved.

The ivory statues were probably made by the court sculptor Paul Heermann. They depict the ancient Roman divinities Neptune and Ceres, Minerva and Mercury. They also symbolise the four elements: water, earth, fire and air. On the various cups, bowls and glass flasks assigned to the various gods, you can also see mythological scenes repeating the themes of water, earth, fire and air.

They are taken up once again in the coffee pot, which crowns the whole ensemble. The earth is symbolised by snakes which are gracefully intertwined, forming the handle. The diamond-studded salamander is a symbol of fire. The frog on the lid, holding a heart with the king’s insignia, symbolises water, and the white eagle’s head on the spout is an image of ruling the air. Of course, the white eagle is also a royal symbol – the heraldic beast on the Polish coat-of-arms.

Dinglinger’s investment paid off. When he presented the service personally to the king in Warsaw at Christmas 1701, August the Strong was so delighted that he gave him fifty thousand Thalers – almost as much as the basic cost of building the Baroque palace at Moritzburg.