NB: the Silberkammer closed in April 2023 for a significant length of time for extensive renovation work. I don’t have a date for the reopening, but expect changes to the displays.
I’ll update the below as soon as the location opens its doors again and I get a chance to visit. In the meantime, you can still visit other parts of the Hofburg self-guided tour.
One of the public areas inside the Hofburg is the Silberkammer or Imperial Silver Collection. But you find far more than just silver inside.
- Showcases a huge range of “priceless” Habsburg items
- Includes porcelain, glassware, linen, silver, gold and other household items
- Particular focus on the 19th century and the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph
- Included within the standard tour ticket
- Book a guided tour* of the Hofburg
- See also:
Inside the Silberkammer
This stop on the 3-location tour of the Sisi Museum and Hofburg acts as a doorway to understanding the lives, privileges, habits and even insecurities of the Imperial family.
The top three things I learnt here were:
- They liked their candy
- It is apparently impossible to over-decorate a dinner table
- You know you’re in financial trouble when you run out of gold plates to eat off. (I think we’ve all had that problem.)
I’ll cover specific highlights shortly, but here some thoughts to carry with you…
Scale and extravagance
(Silver Collection, Milan table centrepiece © Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H., Photo Alexander Eugen Koller)
When you look at the displays, you begin to understand the sheer variety of dinner services and similar the court must have demanded.
One service for breakfast, another for balls, another for the private use of Empress Elisabeth, another for Franz Joseph’s hunting lodge, another for state visits, etc. etc….
Throw in the gifts from foreign royals and you wonder if the huge size of the Hofburg complex might be due to the required storage space for crockery.
Dentist’s heaven
Right from the start, you realise why so many confectioners and patisseries fill Vienna: the first display of kitchen equipment features an awful lot of cake tins.
Decorative stands for serving cakes, sweetmeats and candies pop up regularly. Meat might be the main dish, but it seems pretty clear where the Habsburg heart lay when it comes to eating.
Now I know why Marie Antoinette – born a Habsburg – said “Let them eat cake” (except she probably didn’t).
Power and influence
Think a plate is just a plate? Something to eat off?
Nope.
It’s a symbol.
Maybe a symbol of love or respect, as in Empress Elisabeth’s gift of a nature-themed dinner service to Emperor Franz Joseph for the aforementioned hunting lodge.
Maybe a symbol of power and influence. If a king pops round for breakfast, you need to bring out your best crockery: the image and status of an empire are at stake.
Balancing the books
And the best crockery does not come cheap. It costs money needed elsewhere for the unfortunate expenses of Imperial life, like financing wars against Napoleon.
The reason a lot of gold and silver items from the past do not appear in the Silberkammer is because they were melted down for funds.
This indirectly led to the popularity of porcelain as an affordable alternative, although initially just for soup and dessert courses.
Linking the past to the present
As you go round, look for all the historical glassware from Lobmeyr and porcelain from the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory. The latter is the predecessor of the Augarten porcelain company (still going strong: you might like their porcelain museum).
Lobmeyr also continues today, with its 200-year anniversary celebrated in the 2023 Glitz and Glamour exhibition at the MAK museum.
Both manufacturers have flagship stores in Vienna’s city centre and make good sources for gifts or souvenirs of the upmarket variety.
The Highlights
Even those with little interest in tableware cannot fail to marvel at some of the items on display.
The scale, scope and extravagance often take the breath away, both in terms of artistry and the implicit inequality they represent.
The Grand Vermeil
As mentioned before, the Napoleonic wars wrecked havoc on the Imperial budget. However, Napoleon’s eventual defeat did have some side benefits.
The Grand Vermeil is a silver service plated with gold, first produced for the Court of Milan under French rule. Austria’s Emperor Francis I bought it up in 1816 and replaced Napoleon’s coat of arms with his own.
By around 1850, Viennese artisans had extended the service to cover 140 place settings. When you have some 4,500 pieces in your dinner service, accommodating an extra guest or two proves no problem.
(But you don’t want to be the one doing the washing up.)
The Habsburg Service
This unusual dessert service dates back to 1824. Habsburg castles and fortresses decorate the “ruin” plates, while the Gothic-style table centrepieces contain portraits of previous Habsburg rulers, like Albrecht I, and their consorts.
It reminds me of the latter part of the Kunstkammer collection, where the monarchs seemed to feel a strong need for physical expressions of their political legitimacy or status. As if they thought:
A slice of cake, ambassador? Oh, and let my dessert service remind you that you’re dealing with an ancient and powerful dynasty of rulers.
Was it arrogance? Propaganda? Simple self-indulgence?
Emperor Francis I had given up the title of Holy Roman Emperor only a few years previously, which knocked the Habsburg pride, so perhaps it was also an unwitting expression of insecurity?
The centrepieces
A small vase of flowers is unlikely to impress the Tsar of Russia. Nor is a big vase of flowers, frankly.
So the richly-decorated pieces that ran along the centre of a table were a big deal for banquets.
You find these centerpieces throughout the Silberkammer, but the deluxe version is the Milan Centrepiece from 1838.
This was used together with the Grand Vermeil dinner service and could extend up to 30m. That’s longer than the length of a basketball court.
The (somewhat smaller) display in the Silberkammer gives you a feel for the grandeur of those state banquets.
Also look for the bronze gilt French centrepieces from 1850/1851: each a huge complex of figures, forms, scrolls, and candle holders.
And the rest
- In the kitchen and confectionery area, much of the kitchen equipment is stamped with the double eagle and K K Imperial abbreviation. This discouraged stealing apparently.
- The old court silver and table rooms have parts of a dinner service used at the front, mainly made of alpacca (nickel silver): a silver-coloured copper alloy better able to survive the rough and tumble of military life
- The same area has an 1870 Minton dinner service made of English porcelain and featuring floral and animal designs (it’s the one Elisabeth gave to Franz Joseph for his hunting lodge). Below it you get your first glimpse of the Milan centrepiece
- The first cabinets in the “court on the move” area display examples of the Imperial fold: a way of folding the napkin that is (still) only done for visiting heads of state
Only two people at a time know the technique, which they pass down orally. Presumably they never travel in the same vehicle (or eat the same fish).
- Fans of Empress Elisabeth will enjoy many examples of her personal crockery, like the dolphin-themed service used at her villa in Corfu (see here for more “Sisi” items in Vienna)
- Custom-built travel boxes ensure an exact fit for transporting dinner services. You can just imagine the servants opening each box on arrival with some trepidation, praying to any convenient God that everything is still in one piece
A plethora of porcelain
I will freely admit to suffering a little from tableware overload by the time I reached the porcelain sections. But several items stood out. For example:
- More examples of napkin-folding mastery with Barock-style fish and bird shapes (if you want to try this at home, you’ll need bigger napkins, believe me)
- The 1814 gold service hastily purchased in time to impress those attending the Congress of Vienna that began late in that year and settled the future of Europe for decades to come
The service is porcelain covered in polished gold. Again, funding wars against Napoleon had seen the end of the previous gold service. Napoleon had a lot to answer for.
- Meissen porcelain from the 18th century. Germany’s Meissen was Europe’s first porcelain manufactory
- A collection of Imari (far eastern) porcelain dating back to around 1700 and put together by Duke Alexander of Lorraine
Nestled among the Imari collection is the personal solid gold cutlery set of Empress Maria Theresa, complete with its Imperial egg cup.
- Finally, a Minton dessert service lives near the exit. Queen Victoria bought it at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and gifted it to Franz Joseph. The service was so delicate, you couldn’t actually use it
The end of the Silberkammer brings you out into a shop and, beyond that, is the stairs leading to another part of the tour – the Sisi Museum.