Kolekcja | 25.09.2015 A unique coffee and tea set made of gold plated silver upon the request of Aleksandra Engelhardt, wife of Hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, for the family residence of the Branickis in Biała Cerkiew. Commissioned in the workshop of the celebrated goldsmith Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot, the most eminent representative of the highly esteemed family of Parisian goldsmiths active since 1690. In 1785 Odiot was granted the title of master and took over the family firm specialising in the production of silverware. The workshop realised predominantly commissions made by Emperor Napoleon I, his family and the wealthiest European courts, especially the Russian court. The drawings and projects were made by the master himself, and the best ones were copied for many years. While designing the most important commissions Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot cooperated with such masters as the painter Pierre-Paul Prud`hon, J. M. Moreau, Cavelier or the bronzier P. P. Thomire. A distinguishing feature of the workshop production were contrasts between smooth surfaces and the decorative, outright jewellery-like finish. Special mastery was achieved in affixing decorations onto the surface of the vessels with the aid of screws and nuts, a technique that Odiot perfected.
Preserved archival material informs us that the invaluable set was one of the first of the large dinner silverware sets ordered by the Branickis and executed in Paris in 1814–1819. At the beginning of 1817, the set, maintained in the style of the First Empire, was listed in the documents of the Odiot firm as: the most beautiful, elegant and costliest amidst sets in Poland. It was described as the most magnificent work of the workshop next to a dressing table for Marie Louise and a cradle for L'Aiglon (Napoleon II). The motifs blending the set’s decoration are vine tendrils, clusters of grapes, the acanthus leaf and mother of pearl handles. In literature the set is sometimes described as the “Aleksandra Banicka set”. Banicka, known for her exaggerated thriftiness, never spared funds for purchasing items of high artistic rank, as witnessed by this commission. Unfortunately, the museum has only thirty pieces of the enormous set originally totalling at least 140 pieces (without the cutlery), while several remain in private collections. The preserved Wilanów set includes: two large trays, a samovar, a coffee and tea pot, a milk jug, a samovar bowl and a burner.
Joanna Paprocka-Gajek