The Green Vault [antikvár]

The Green Vauit (Grünes Gewölbe) was the treasure-house of the electors of Saxony. It contains more than 3,000 works of art in gold, silver, precious stones, ivory, ebony and amber, and alsó in glass, brass and bronzé. It is the largestcoilection of precious objects in Europe. About half of its stock is now on display, with the different groups of objects represented to varying degrees, e. g. most of the large stock of ivory, bronzé and rock-crystal is still in storage facilities, while nearly all jeweüery is on view. Why are these treasures so numerous? Why are they of such great artistic value? A look at the Saxon electorate's economic and political importance and its history will explain. Silver deposits were discovered in the hills of Saxony at the end of the twelfth century. The subsequent period saw a rapid expansion of mining; and the electorate became one of Europe's major exporters not only of silver, but alsó of tin, iron, copper, cobalt and valuable stones like serpentine and jasper. As early as the late Middle Ages Saxony had a bour-geoisie that controlled a flourishing industry. Towns which are insignificant today built churches as large as those of the powerful Hanseatic towns in the North and exceeding them in the splendour of their interior decorations. In the market-places of their towns sixteenth-century burghers put up townhalls which made aristocratic castles appear modest in comparison. It was by no means accidental that European Protestantism had its origins in Saxony and that the electorate remained its most powerful exponent for a long time. Therefore the Saxon electors of the House of Wettin took a considerable interest in economic affairs and came to be very learned in them. They alsó had an unu-sual ability to judge the performance of craftsmen. This is shown by the fact that Elector Augustus established the Dresden Art Chamber (Dresdener Kunstkammer) in 1560. The Art Chamber was an all-round museum representing all the branches of technology and science known at the time, with paintings and sculptures assigned a subordinate róle only. Important parts of the stock of the Green Vauit were later taken from this collection, espec-ialSy valuable works in gilded silver combined with natural produce likeostrich-eggs, coconuts, sea-shells and corals, astronomical clocks and turnery pieces in ivory. In addition to the Art Chamber, Dresden Royal Castle had a strong-room, the Secret Depository (Geheime Verwahrung), as it was called. Originally, the Secret Depository had just one room on the ground floor; later on, two adjacent rooms were added. The three rooms were re-garded as the most fire- and burglar-proof in the castle. They had outer walls more than 80 inches thick, windows that were protected by heavy lattices and iron shutters, and arched ceilings. Fire could never reach the government securities, the cash reserves and the precious objects which were stored there. Winding stairs hidden inside the internál walls led up to the rooms in which the elector lived. The first, originál room was painted green; and this may have been the reason why the inhabitants of the castle referred to it colloquially as the green vauit, a term which was to become generally accepted later on. The first treasure-house museum was set up in these rooms in 1723—24. Its stock was taken from the Secret Depository and the Art Chamber, and partly alsó from the Silver Chamber, the place where the elector's table silver was stored and looked after. More walls were broken down between 1727 and 1730 to add another four show-rooms and a vestibule with small