ATTRIBUTED TO BENJAMIN LEWIS VULLIAMY

Details

A REGENCY EBONY-INLAID SABICU AND BRONZE INK-STAND
Attributed to Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy
The rectangular top mounted with a central gadrooned tazza with satyr-mask handles, flanked by smaller gadrooned lidded urns with ram's heads at the shoulders, each long side with an ebony-lined scoop pen-tray, above a mahogany-lined frieze drawer, on a moulded plinth
8½ in. (21.5 cm.) high; 14¾ in. (37.5 cm.) wide; 9½ in. (24 cm.) deep

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
G. de Bellaigue, 'The Vulliamys and France', Furniture History, vol. III, 1967, pp. 49-50, pl. 12A.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

The vase-capped inkstand, inlaid with Grecian-black ribbon tablets, is designed in the early 19th century French antique manner promoted by Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. Its bronze garniture of bacchic ram-headed, reed-gadrooned and acorn-finialed 'krater' vases corresponds to those featured on a Carlton House 'Sphinx' inkstand supplied in 1810 for George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV by the Vulliamys of Pall Mall. The Prince's vases, which were recorded as serving for 'Ink, Sand, Sponge etc', accompanied a similar thyrsus-finialed vase for 'wafers', which lacked handles. This present inkstand is likely to have been designed by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d. 1854), who served as the Prince's 'Furniture man' and advertised as a dealer in 'ornamental work in metal'. From 1806 he operated a close working relationship with the Paris bronze-manufacturer Pierre-Maximilian Delafontaine (d. 1860), while the Prince's 'China man' Robert Fogg served as an intermediary.

An inkstand of this pattern, but with a different garniture, was sold anonymously, Christie's New York, 25 October 1986, lot 6.

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