As the political centre of northern Italy under Napoleonic rule, Milan had experienced an era of programmatic courtly magnificence on the French model. The coronation festivities for the new Habsburg king were intended to make a cultural statement that surpassed the splendour of the previous era of governance. Extending over thirty metres when laid out in full, the Milan Centrepiece impressively embodies this aspiration. 

The central imperial administration in Vienna commissioned the centrepiece from the Milan bronze founder Luigi Manfredini. Having already made pieces for the Napoleonic court, Manfredini continued in the French neoclassical style. Small dancing figures embellish the mirror plateaux, invoking works by the sculptor Antonio Canova. The allegorical figural programme of the central part of the centrepiece contains local references, showing Lombardia with her mural crown and Venetia with the doge’s cap and lion of St Mark. On several occasions, valuable tableware was transported from Milan to Vienna, including the centerpiece in 1857.

In order to recreate the impression of an imperial banquet at the Hofburg, a sequence of various settings, from hors d’oeuvre to dessert, is displayed along the table. Some dinners only had eight courses, while other more elaborate banquets sometimes consisted of up to twenty-four different courses. Since bronze-gilt centrepieces did not as a rule have a matching dinner service, at banquets individual services were used that harmonized in terms of style. 

Here, as the most important gala dining service in the Silver Collection, the Grand Vermeil is shown off to its best advantage in all its versatility. The first pieces, made in 1808 by Martin-Guillaume Biennais in Paris, likewise ended up in Vienna via Milan, albeit as early as 1815. The Viennese silversmiths Mayerhofer and Klinkosch created extra pieces for the service, gradually modernizing it with new special sets of cutlery and tableware. For gala banquets, to go with the Grand Vermeil service, the Imperial and Royal Court Glassmaker Ludwig Lobmeyr designed the elegant muslin drinking glasses with fine gold rims.