Influences occidentales dans l’orfèvrerie brancovane

Abstract : Western influences in the Brancovan Silverware. In the last decades of the XVIIth century the relations between the Romanian countries and West, especially Venice intensify, representing an attempt to get closer to the Western Latin world. Artistically, these relations are expressed by a large number of imported silverware objects. The Cantacusins would bring their art objects from Venice. A number of silverware objects offered to the Cotroceni, Radu Vodă dintr-un Lemn, Supratele and Comana monasteries bear the imprint of Venitian craftsmen. Constantin Brâncoveau gave to the Mănăstirea dintr-un Lemn a piece of silverware signed by the Venitian artist Gerolamo Campagniani. The integration of objects bearing the imprint of famous craftsmen from silverware centers (Ausburg. Nürnberg, Riga, Venice, etc.) within the Romanian Silverware, the relations with Transylvania, were already traditional as far as silverware was concerned, as well as the relations with the already known Balkan silverware (chiproviceni masters -Fr. Marcanić), and Hey prove the existence of economic relations and wider preoccupation for the European art. The preference for objects made in the style of late Renaissance and Baroque, by foreign craftsmen, is significant for the tastes and inclinations of the Brancovan time and can be regarded as an influence of the western spirit. The orders for foreign craftsmen express an orientation of the commanditaires’ taste towards those forms of art that were to influence the works of Romanian craftsmen. The role of the silverware objects in the whole of the Romanian art in the Brancovan epoch is very important throurgh the spreading of typical floral motifs, though the silverware made in Transylvania, stone carving, wood carving, embroydery and the decoration of old books during Șerban Cantacuzino and Constantin Brâncoveanu times.