Wine cistern

Charles Frederich Kandler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is an electrotype reproduction of the magnificent silver wine cistern commissioned by the English banker and silversmith Henry Jernegan (ca. 1688–1745/6) for his client Littleton Pointz Meynell (ca. 1695–1752) who was desirous to have the "largest and finest silver cistern that ever was or could be…" A first sketch of the design honoring the wine god Bacchus was done by the antiquarian and engraver George Vertue (1684-1756) and the wax models for the figures were executed by the Flemish-born English sculptor John Michael Rysbrack (1694–1770). The actual cistern, now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, was the work of the silversmith Charles Frederick Kandler (act. 1720–1770s). When this remarkable piece was finally ready in 1734, Meynell had changed his mind and Jernegan was stuck with the extravagant object for which he failed to find a buyer. Offered as first price in a lottery of 1739, the wine cistern entered the collection of Empress Anne of Russia by the following year.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art