RICHMOND, VA.- Fifty dazzling works of art in English silver have been given to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts by collector Rita R. Gans of New York, significantly elevating the stature of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts‘ collection. VMFA Director Alex Nyerges calls it “the most important and fabulous gift of English silver in memory in many years to any museum in the world.” “This additional gift, when united with the 102 works of art already in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Jerome and Rita Gans Collection of English Silver, means the collection is arguably the best of its kind in America. When the new gift is installed, the gallery will be the most important of its kind on view in the U.S.,” Nyerges says. The silver in the latest Gans gift ranges in date from 1440 to 1845. The largest portion is from the Georgian period, when London’s silversmiths led Europe in skill and innovation. Mrs. G