The historical collection contains about 1200 different types of metal tableware and cutlery. Among the rarest and most valuable items of the collection there is a tea set produced by the workshops of Veliky Ustyug, imitating expensive chinaware. To simulate porcelain the masters used various techniques. Metal (usually copper) shape of the objects was covered with several layers of white enamel. The last layer was decorated with ornamented plates of silver foil. In the first half of the XIX century there was a decline in the area of enamel production. Products made of substitutes of silver came into fashion. They have found mass distribution in the circles of the average income of the population, and in the families of noblemen, and even at the Royal court. The main centers of production of metal tableware have become such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg and Warsaw, while the Polish companies were leading. Production in this area developed up to 1880-ies, when the technique of production of silvered metal products has reached such a high level that objects of brass and Nickel silver were almost indistinguishable from real silver. The collection includes 30 of tableware made at famous Warsaw factory of products made of cladding silver and Nickel silver “Fraget”, founded by brothers Alphonse and Joseph Fraget in 1824. A tea set in the "Old Russian style" is considered to be the work of jewelry art. It was made in the workshop of F. K. Yartsev (1888, Moscow). "Russian style" created a whole line in the production of art objects made of silver. Numerous factories and workshops of gold and silversmiths have created cutlery, tea and coffee sets using forms and decorative motifs borrowed from folk and ancient Russian art. In the twentieth century dominated inexpressive stamped cutlery made of stainless steel, aluminum, in the best case of Nickel silver. But these items also have historical value, therefore they are included in the collection and exhibited in the Museum.
