The exhibition “Between Trapeza and Sofra. Metal Vessels from the 13th to the 19th Century in the Collections of the National Museum of Serbia” opened in the Gallery of the National Museum of Kraljevo, on Friday, February 14th, 2025, starting at 6 p.m. The authors of the exhibition are Branka Ivanić, MA, museum advisor of the National Museum of Serbia, Nataša Cerović, senior curator of the National Museum of Serbia, and Ivana Lemcool, PhD, curator of the National Museum of Serbia. Tatjana Mihailović, PhD, museum advisor of the National Museum Kraljevo, welcomed the attendees and introduced the participants of the program, saying that the exhibition displays extraordinary examples of vessels made of precious and non-precious metals from the collection of the Department of the Middle Ages of the National Museum of Serbia. She emphasized that this is a continuation of the long-standing cooperation of the National Museum Kraljevo with the central museum institution, which allows the Kraljevo public to get acquainted with the collections and cultural treasures it preserves.
Then, one of the authors of the exhibition, art historian Ivana Lemcool, PhD, curator of the National Museum of Serbia, addressed the audience, thanking her colleagues from Kraljevo for their hospitality and help with the realization of the exhibition. She pointed out that the exhibition features 81 metal vessels, and that almost half of them are representative specimens, mostly made of silver, some with gilding, and many with figurative and ornamental decoration. These are cups, the use of which we learn about from written sources, visual representations on wall paintings and manuscript miniatures, and sometimes from inscriptions carved on the cups themselves. The shape of the cups themselves, significantly different from today’s, dates back to ancient times, and continued to be used in Byzantium, as well as in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. Although widely used, due to the high cost of the material, the vessels were often recast for other purposes, and therefore only rare examples of this kind have survived to this day, Lemcool pointed out.
In our area, various examples of these vessels with influences from Byzantine, Western European and Islamic art can be found. Stylistic interweavings are characteristic of cups created in Southeast Europe, where they were produced long after they fell out of use in the West. Very often, such cups were used in churches, as evidenced by written and visual sources, as well as monastery treasuries. During the Ottoman period, the same workshops produced vessels for the Christian and Islamic population, and the religion of the customer could only be learned from inscriptions, as is the case with the plate of Patriarch Arsenius IV from 1726. In addition to tableware, the exhibition also features utensils for storing and preparing food, as well as those for bathing and washing hands. A special unit is represented by hammam vessels, which date back to antiquity, and more can be learned about the various purposes of these vessels and the customs associated with them from the illustrated legends that accompany the exhibition.
Bojana Borić Brešković, MA, director of the National Museum of Serbia, opened the exhibition, saying that she was honoured to have the opportunity to open the exhibition “Between Trapeza and Sofra. Metal Vessels from the 13th to the 19th Century in the Collections of the National Museum of Serbia” on this solemn day, on the eve of the Statehood Day of Serbia, in Kraljevo, which is located in the canter of Serbian medieval spirituality and culture. She referred to the previous cooperation between the two museums, and noted that this exhibition, which was originally shown in Belgrade, then in an abbreviated form at the Museum of Herzegovina in Trebinje, is now available to the public in Kraljevo in full. She mentioned the importance and appreciation of silverware in the Middle Ages, but also later during the Ottoman rule, where such items remained in use long after they were forgotten in other regions and replaced by vessels made of other materials. Finally, she emphasized the importance of the exhibition in that it brings exclusive items from the permanent collection of the National Museum of Serbia to the public, such as the cup of Emperor Dušan and secular vessels from Arilje. After the opening of the exhibition, the authors Nataša Cerović, senior curator of the National Museum Kraljevo and Ivana Lemcool, PhD, senior curator of the National Museum Kraljevo, organized an author’s tour for the interested public.