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Lot Essay
The nef, from the old French la nef 'a ship', first came into use in the 13th century as a drinking vessel, developing over centuries into more useful receptacles, first for dining implements and later for salt before becoming ornamental, although still intended to be used on the dining table. While the Burghley Nef, marked for Paris, 1527, is perhaps the best known example, many examples were made in the early 17th in Augsburg and Nuremburg. Wilderstein particularly seems to specialise in producing examples such as an example now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (H. Seling, Die Kunst der Augsburger Goldschmiede 1529-1868, Munich, 1980, vol. II, no. 464) and another in the Städtischen Kunstsammlungen Augsburg. The nef represented a tour de force for the silversmith as craftsmen as well as being one of the most important pieces of silver plate in a Princely or Royal collection.
The nef had fallen more or less out of use by the end of the 17th century but was revived in the 19th century as part of a more general renewed interest in historical forms, an interest which was met by manufactures such as Ludwig Neresheimer & Co., working in Hanau, and the likes of Hermann Ratzersdorfer in Vienna, the first producing elaborate silver examples emulating traditional forms while Vienna became the centre for the production of lavish Renaissance style silver-gilt and enamel-mounted rock crystal objets de vertu, including nefs. Where Neresheimer examples are typically pastiches of earlier styles and Ratzersdorfer marketed his wares as 'the latest in "modern" fashion', albeit in the Renaissance tradition, some English silversmiths such as Omar Ramsden again viewed the nef as the tour de force which it was to the 17th century silversmith.
The nef had fallen more or less out of use by the end of the 17th century but was revived in the 19th century as part of a more general renewed interest in historical forms, an interest which was met by manufactures such as Ludwig Neresheimer & Co., working in Hanau, and the likes of Hermann Ratzersdorfer in Vienna, the first producing elaborate silver examples emulating traditional forms while Vienna became the centre for the production of lavish Renaissance style silver-gilt and enamel-mounted rock crystal objets de vertu, including nefs. Where Neresheimer examples are typically pastiches of earlier styles and Ratzersdorfer marketed his wares as 'the latest in "modern" fashion', albeit in the Renaissance tradition, some English silversmiths such as Omar Ramsden again viewed the nef as the tour de force which it was to the 17th century silversmith.