CHRISTOFLE. Galvanic facsimile of the Hildesheim... Lot 225

CHRISTOFLE. Galvanic facsimile of the Hildesheim Treasure, diameter: 21 cm. wear. The Treasure was discovered on October 17, 1868 at the foot of the Galgenberg overlooking Hildesheim (a small town in Lower Saxony located east of the Weser, south of Hanover). Made of silver with gold highlights, it features 70 pieces of Roman silver dating from the 1st century AD. One hypothesis is that it may have belonged to the militarily active Roman commander in Germania, Publius Varus Quinctilius, while another suggests that it may have been war booty. On September 17, 1869, the ensemble was handed over by the King of Prussia to the Department of Antiquities in Berlin (Altes Museum, now the Pergamon Museum, where it remains to this day). From 1874 onwards, Christofle (a famous French goldsmith and tableware company founded in Paris in 1830) produced a galvanoplastic reproduction of all the treasure's pieces in silver-plated and partially gilded copper. This revolutionary new technique involves applying a layer of metal to a metallic or other conductive surface using an electrochemical process.