A MATCHED PAIR OF REGENCY ORMOLU INKSTANDS

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A MATCHED PAIR OF REGENCY ORMOLU INKSTANDS
BY THOMAS WEEKS

One depicting Cupid taking flight while holding a dished stiff-leaf cast drip-pan with tulip-shaped nozzle, a case at his hip engraved Match Box Weeks' Museum., on a rectangular black marble base with a reeded inkwell and a bacchic ewer, the other inkstand depicting a prostrate Cupid by his quiver, in front of a beehive inkwell with lidded top, on a rectangular plinth engraved 'Fear not sweet Innocence Thou stranger to Offence.' Weeks' Rl. Museum Tichborne St., on a black marble plinth
Cupid taking flight 7½in. (19cm.) high
Beehive 7¾in. (19.5cm.) wide (2)

Lot Essay

The Honey-Thief inkstand, in part symbolic of the Golden Age, recalls the idyll ascribed to Theocritus. The latter concerned Cupid who was stung while attempting to steal a honeycomb. He was then tutored by his mother Venus on the pain inflicted by his own darts.
During the early 19th Century the jeweller Thomas Weeks (d.1834) established a 'Royal Mechanical Museum' or emporium in Tichbourne Street

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