The Green Vaults [antikvár]

PREFACE The Green Vaults is one of the richest treasuries in Europe. Its unique setting, dating mainly from the early eighteenth century, was more famous than that of any other. A considerable part of this decoration was destroyed towards the end of the Second World War. What remained is being restored. The Collection in the Green Vaults is one of the most outstanding of its kind because of the number and variety of the objects it contains. There are more than three thousand one hundred works made of gold, silver or precious stones, of almost every kind of semi-precious stones, of ivory, amber, ceramics, mother of pearl, of coconut or ostrich egg, of enamel, bronzé, iron, wood or glass. There are objects of first-rate quality in each of these groups and hardly any that are of inferior quality as works of art. The most recent publication on the Collection is "Das Grüne Gewölbe Dresden" by the late Director Jean-Louis Sponsel, f our volumes, published at Leipzig between 1925 and 1932. It is of fundamental importance as a summary of the hundred years of research done by the men in charge of the Collection and as the result of the splendid work performed by Sponsel on the contents and the history of the Dresden treasury. Neither in its scope nor in its conclusions does the present book seek to emulate this work or to displace it: it has been written to satisfy the growing interest shown in the Green Vaults by an ever-increasing number of visitors. But its publication is alsó justified by the time and the events that separate it from Sponsel's four volumes and it endeavours to make available the knowledge that has been acquired during the last forty years about somé of the works of art in the Collection. The restricted space available in the catalogue has demanded extreme conciseness. Besides it has been possible to shed a new light on the history of the treasury, though this was in fact particularly difficult because of the destruction of the old rooms of the museum and the loss of the library, card indexes, and so forth. This book therefore is proof of the work done by all those who have been working for the Green Vaults since its treasures were returned by the Soviet authorities in 1958 from safe-keeping in the Soviet Union.