| Description
The nef is modelled in the form of a two-masted ship with cold-enamelled
figures and cannon on deck and other figures climbing the rigging
and mainmast. On the poop deck is a group of figures dining at a
table inside the tiled cabin, on the roof of which sits a monkey.
The oval base is chased with
gadroons and naturalistic
foliage with three applied lizards, and the stem is formed as a
tree trunk with an engraved foliage calyx
at the top. The repoussé
hull of the ship is chased with cartouches
of sea monsters and with scrolls and fruit on matted ground. The
spout of the nef issues from an applied mask at the bow. Another
lizard is applied to the interior of the hull. The mizzenmast has
two furled sails, the mainsail is engraved with a later coat of
arms, and a flag is flying from the top of the mainmast.
Construction
The foot is raised and has
a seamed and soldered strengthening rim. The lizards are cast and
secured to the foot by screws. Another element has evidently been
lost from the foot, and the hole has been plugged with silver. The
raised hull is attached to
the cast stem by a screw; the chased calyx
is held in place over the screw between the hull and stem. The spout
continues inside the bowl as a siphon and terminates near the base
of the hull. The deck is formed from a sheet of silver, secured
to the hull by an external locating flange, and the masts and cast
figures and other elements are held in place by screws. Various
screw holes in the deck and crow's nest indicate the loss of other
figures.
Commentary
The word nef meaning "ship," is taken from the old French
and refers to a particular type of essentially ceremonial object
that evolved in France during the Middle Ages. According to R W
Lightbown, one of the earliest references to a nef is in a document
of 1239. During the succeeding centuries it fulfilled a number of
functions, the chief of these being analogous to the role of the
great salt in England, to mark the place of the greatest secular
or ecclesiastical lord at table.
Some documents and pictorial sources suggest
that nefs were used to contain the lord's personal eating utensils.
Others appear to have been purely ornamental, while the early sixteenth
century Burghley Nef, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,
was used as a saltcellar.
Although fine nefs of later periods are
known, such as a seventeenth-century gold nef no longer extant,
belonging to Louis xiv, and Napoleon’s nef of 1804 by Henri
Auguste, now in the Musée Malmaison, the greatest period
of production seems to have come to an end quite early in the sixteenth
century. Examples such as the Burghley Nef and the Schliisselfelder
Nef of 1503 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, represent
the last flowering of the form as a goldsmith's showpiece. They
continued to be popular in Germany during the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries, but their form became increasingly
standardized and their quality declined accordingly.
The Gilbert nef is an unusually fine example
of the form for its comparatively late date. Although considerably
smaller and less ambitious than the Schliisselfelder Nef - the latter
is seventy-nine centimeters tall - it is in the same tradition in
its basic form and function. Both are constructed with numerous
figures on deck and with noblemen or officers dining on the poop.
More significantly, both may ostensibly function as a ewer or drinking
vessel when the superstructure has been removed.
While it is doubtful that the elaborate
Schliisselfelder Nef was ever intended to be used as such, a sixteenth-century
drawing of the vessel in the Kunstbibliotek, Berlin, suggests the
possibility with its inscription: "The silver-gilt ship weighs
26 marks. When you remove the upper part, the lower section becomes
a drinking vessel that holds two measures of drink." In the
case of the Gilbert nef, the spout or siphon projecting from the
figurehead is so constructed that its point of intake is located
at the deepest part of the bowl, thus allowing the vessel to be
drunk from without lifting or tipping it.
The lizards around the foot and inside
the bowl are reminiscent of the technique of casting animals and
foliage from life developed by Nuremberg makers such as Jacob Frohlich.
Glossaries
chase - to decorate a
metal surface using a hammer and sharp tool
gadroons - a series of convex curves often applied
as a border decoration
calyx - a cuplike motif resembling the outer leaves or
petals of a plant or flower
repoussé - relief decoration on metal executed
by hammering from the back or underside of the object
cartouche - an ornamental panel in the shape of
curled paper or parchment scrolls
raised - formed from a single sheet of metal by
repeated hammering over an anvil
back to the
collection
|
the
Gilbert silver