Treasured inheritance: six hundred years of Oxford college silver make a splendid and instructive exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum

Apollo, August, 2004 by Philippa Glanville

Penetrating this normally private world, often dismissed in stereotypes of privilege, this show brings out the colleges' role as guardians of a distinctive social history. Antiquarians and connoisseurs have appreciated Oxford's historic silver since the first publications in the 1820s, but largely as examples of rare forms, unusual makers' marks or because of the later career of the donor. At last, the history of patronage and the significance of distinctive cultures of eating and drinking are attracting serious academic attention as researchers recognise the potential of the rich paper-trail created by the ownership and management of plate.

Visitors should not miss the exhibition's third section, in the temporary exhibitions room on the ground floor, reached in an idiosyncratic route through the archaeology displays. This shows striking late-twentieth-century and contemporary plate, demonstrating how the old tradition of giving drinking vessels has been transformed into a new enthusiasm for distinctive table ware, such as the Millennium bowl commissioned for St Catherine's from Jenny Edge, or the series of altar vessels created by Rod Kelly for New College.

Philippa Glanville, retired Academic Director of Waddesdon Manor, and former Chief Curator of Metalwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum, writes on silver and London history.