This book is a comprehensive, well illustrated guide to one of the most important collections of 18th-century silver in Europe, extending to nearly a thousand individual pieces, being of the highest quality, style and exuberance of form and surviving virtually intact along with extensive and previously untapped archival evidence of its commissioning and use. The book analyses the silver from stylistic and technical perspectives and uses it to shed light on the patronage, fashion, and diplomatic, political and social history of the period. It also casts new light on the Herveys, one of England's most famous and eccentric aristocratic families.