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Lot Essay
The nef, from the old French la nef 'a ship', first came into use in the thirteenth 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, examples were also made in the early seventeenth century in Augsburg and Nuremburg. 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.
Esaias zur Linden specialised in making nefs or ship models. A triple-masted nef by the same maker, similarly chased with sea monsters on the hull and base (sold, Christies, London, 25 November 2003, lot 1620) is engraved with inscriptions, relating to the sea monster decoration, 'Nauita Erythroeum paulrus qui amniyat equor; Tintimmobolo so fonito proegrandia Cete; In prore et poppis fummo refonontro pendet; Balenos et Monstro marinn o nouribus arret', which may be translated as, 'The timorous mariner who sails the Erithraean sea hangs resonant bells at the highest points of stern and prow; by this sound he drives whales and huge sea monsters away from the ships.' M. Rosenberg, Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen, Frankfurt am Main, 1925, vol. III, no. 4135, lists some 30 such pieces by this maker including examples in the collections of Baron Karl von Rothschild, A. Pringsheim, The Armoury, Moscow, and the Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. A nef by Linden comparable to the present example, once in the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 17.190.319).
Esaias zur Linden specialised in making nefs or ship models. A triple-masted nef by the same maker, similarly chased with sea monsters on the hull and base (sold, Christies, London, 25 November 2003, lot 1620) is engraved with inscriptions, relating to the sea monster decoration, 'Nauita Erythroeum paulrus qui amniyat equor; Tintimmobolo so fonito proegrandia Cete; In prore et poppis fummo refonontro pendet; Balenos et Monstro marinn o nouribus arret', which may be translated as, 'The timorous mariner who sails the Erithraean sea hangs resonant bells at the highest points of stern and prow; by this sound he drives whales and huge sea monsters away from the ships.' M. Rosenberg, Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen, Frankfurt am Main, 1925, vol. III, no. 4135, lists some 30 such pieces by this maker including examples in the collections of Baron Karl von Rothschild, A. Pringsheim, The Armoury, Moscow, and the Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. A nef by Linden comparable to the present example, once in the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 17.190.319).