A rock-crystal cup and cover with jewelled silver-gilt mounts, Hermann Ratzersdorfer, Vienna, circa 1890

Hermann Ratzersdorfer, one of the children of Salomon Schleume Ratzersdorfer (1786-1868), was born at Pressburg (Pozsony), Bratislava on 16 May 1815. He moved to Vienna where in 1843 he entered his mark as a 'Goldwaren, Silber und Juwelenfabrik.' Ratzersdorfer first came to international notice in 1851 in London at the Great Exhibition when he submitted a toilet or looking glass, weighing 135 ounces, 'the frame of which is entirely of massive silver, richly decorated with various ornaments, and with numerous groups and single figures.' For this work he was awarded the Prize Medal. (Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851, part IV, p. 1036, Austria, no. 577; Reports of the Juries, London, 1852, p. 517).

Exhibits of silver and silver-gilt, enamel and hardstone work were sent by Ratzersdorfer to the exhibitions in Paris in 1855, London in 1871 and Vienna in 1873, where he won further praise. He was given favourable notices at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia in 1876 for his mounts to a Bohemian glass service by Lobmeyer ordered by Emperor Franz Joseph: 'Equally perfect is the goldsmith-work on the handles, borderings, etc., by the jeweler and enameler, H. Ratzersdorfer, in Vienna, in whose workshop many a masterly piece has originated in the style of the late renaissance, coming to a collector at second or third hand, and paid for in good faith as antique.' (The Aldine, New York, 1876, p. 122)

Ratzersdorfer retired in 1881, when he was succeeded in business by son, Julius Oscar Dietrich (5 January 1844 – 7 October 1929), and died on on 4 September 1891. He was buried in the family plot in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery, Vienna.

The exuberance of Ratzersdorfer's enamel and hardstone pieces and the inventiveness in their designs, inspired by 16^th century goldsmiths' masterpieces, has long attracted a wide circle of admirers. A few were in the United States of America, where Alexander Eisner (1843-1891), one of Ratzersdorfer's relations, was briefly the firm's agent. As early as 18 March 1911 the American Art Galleries auction house (later Parke Bernet/Sotheby's) offered 'Important Artistic Objects in Carved Rock Crystal, Lapis-Lazuli and Ivory Being Nineteenth Century Reproductions By HERMANN RATZERSDORFER, Vienna and MORTIZ KELLER of Berlin.' The collection, numbering 26 objects, was sold for a total of $12,50, attracting the curiosity of buyers because 'these objects are not collected here to any large extent . . . They were acquired by an American amateur since deceased who resided for several years in Paris.' (The Sun, New York, New York, Sunday, 12 March 1911, p. 9f, Sunday, 19 March 1911, p. 7c).