A Regency bronze and ivory-mounted rosewood ambassadorial inkstand circa 1815

of rectangular form, the sides of stepped molded profile, the front and sides with rectangular break-front tablets and enclosing a cedar-lined drawer, the front mounted with  a bust of Minerva flanked by anthemia, the sides with entwined serpent handles, the conforming top with a pen trough flanked by canted wells, the back with three wells with ivory labels inscribed ANSWERED, INVITATION CARDS, and UNANSWERED, divided by a smaller pen trough and two lift-out bronze candle –nozzles on white marble bases, the center with two pairs of cut-glass ink wells with bronze covers with foliate finials and centered by a carved ivory bust of Voltaire supported on a faceted plinth.

Christie’s, London, The Fermor-Hesketh Collection, July 7, 1988, lot 9

Christie’s, Review of the Season 1988, 1988, p. 249