The Sun King’s Silver: An Artisan-Centered Study of the Silver Furnishings of Louis XIV

Abstract

In December 1689, Louis XIV consigned his vast collection of silver furnishings to the crucibles of the Royal Mint. Although the celebrated collection took on legendary status that has persisted in popular and scholarly narratives of the reign of the Sun King ever since, the material and the documentary archive nonetheless offer a limited picture. This article seeks to demonstrate that reexamining the archive with reference to a chaîne opératoire framework that centers on artisanal practice can help to illuminate these absent artifacts. This attention to production and process allows a view beyond the representational surfaces. In the hands of networks of expert specialists—goldsmiths, joiners, sculptors, ironmongers, founders, ébénistes, and probably more besides—these pieces combined cross-trade expertise and diverse techniques, revealing sophisticated deployments of material and coordination of artisanal skills.