Heritage: Between Sacred Art and Silver brings together a selection of silver objects considered as functional artefacts, objects of display, and material witnesses to patterns of taste, craftsmanship, and social practice across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The sale centres on works that can be read through their form, technique, and marks: each object is approached as a document of its place of production, metal standard, workshop context, and conditions of use.

The selection spans Russian silver, Central European and Swiss workshop production, British pieces, and objects bearing assay or fineness marks from distinct regulatory systems. Marks are treated throughout as primary instruments of attribution and historical interpretation rather than subsidiary technical data. The 84 zolotniki standard, the kokoshnik punchmark introduced under the 1896 reform, Viennese assay stamps, fineness indications, and maker’s marks position each object within the commercial and geographic networks through which silver circulated. They point pointing equally to state systems of quality control, to the transfer of ornamental models across workshop traditions, and to the varied roles of silver in domestic, ceremonial, and representative interiors.

The typological range is broad: spoons, beakers, boxes, trays, and decorative vessels appear alongside commemorative and presentation pieces whose function was explicitly social and representative. In each case, the interest lies in the relationship between material, technique, and use. Engraving, gilding, filigree, niello work, cast and shaped borders, and the incorporation of medallions or coins demonstrate the extent to which silver served as a worked surface — a field for ornamental statement and an index of the status and affiliations of its owner or commissioner.

A section of icons and religious objects accompanies the silver, introduced not as the primary axis of the sale but as a contextual counterpart. These works attest to the persistence of established iconographic programmes, the sustained circulation of devotional models across confessional and geographic boundaries, and the material conditions through which image and ritual function were brought into relation.

Taken together, the selection proposes a materially grounded reading of portable heritage, in which each object is assessed through its substance, technique, marks, workshop attribution, function, and documented history. Heritage: Between Sacred Art and Silver addresses a field of collecting in which the history of the decorative arts, the history of taste, and the discipline of attribution converge — presented here within a rigorous, well-documented, and accessible auction framework.