Gifts to the czars: Seventeenth-century European silver from the Kremlin Armory in Moscow.

The Armory Museum in the Moscow Kremlin (see P1. II) has one of the largest collections of European Renaissance and baroque silver in the world. One reason for its magnificence is the richness of the gifts brought to the Russian czars by ambassadors on important occasions. [1] Gifts were also given by merchants and representatives of international trading companies hoping to obtain the right to trade in Russia or to transport merchandise across Russian territory A selection of these gifts is currently on view in the United States in an exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art noted at the end of this article.

The silver objects presented as gifts to the czars ...