Cocktails with a Curator: Du Paquier "Elephant-Shaped Wine Dispenser"

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he explores a wonderfully curious elephant-shaped wine dispenser, one of the exquisite pieces of Du Paquier porcelain given to The Frick Collection by Melinda and Paul Sullivan in 2016. Although much remains unknown about this extraordinary vessel, it may be related to an elaborate object made for Empress Anna of Russia in which cup-bearing figures attached to a rotating tray pass beneath the trunk-shaped spout of a porcelain pachyderm. You can study the delicate grapevines adorning the Frick’s wine dispenser in the celebrated “porcelain room” on the third floor of Frick Madison. This week’s complementary cocktail is a glass of Tokaji wine, a favorite drink of 18th-and 19th-century monarchs produced in the Hungarian region of the same name.

This episode of Cocktails with a Curator is underwritten by Ayesha Bulchandani.

Cocktail Recipe

Tokaji wine

Audiences under 21 are encouraged to join with a non-alcoholic drink.

Mocktail

Black iced tea with honey