Silver Hanukkah lamp discovered in the vaults at old New Court.
Hanukkah is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.
The maker’s mark is that of Erhard(t) Christian Specht of Frankfurt. He was the son and brother of silversmiths. The latter used a very similar mark but the one on the Rothschild menorah is clearly that of Erhard(t) Christian who was baptised in 1766 and became a master of the Silversmith's Guild in 1791. In 1796 he married the daughter of an Arnhem silversmith. He died in 1806.
The piece is absolutely typical of German neo-classicism of the period, and it is possible that Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836) brought this piece with him from the family home in the Judengasse in Frankfurt, when he came to England at the turn of the nineteenth century. The 'servant light' is possibly not contemporary with the piece.
RAL 000/1911/23
