Ebony, overlaid with silver, German (probably Frankfurt-am-Main), unmarked; engraving attributed to Theodore de Bry, 1580-1598.

Ebony, overlaid with silver pierced and engraved with foliage and grotesques framing Biblical texts and figures of the Four Evangelists (on top of the lid) and of Moses and Isaiah (under the lid).

Bequeathed by John Jones

The original owner of the inkstand is unknown, but the arms engraved on the lid suggest that by the early nineteenth century it was owned by Herbert Marsh (1757-1839), Biblical critic, Bishop of Llandaff and, latterly, Bishop of Peterborough. Marsh may have acquired the inkstand during his stay in Germany (prolonged by ill-health) between 1786 and 1793. (See Forrest: 2004.) In the late nineteenth century the inkstand entered the collection of John Jones, a tailor and army clothier who had made his fortune supplying uniforms to the army during the Crimean War. On his death in 1882, Jones bequeathed his large collection of objects (1034 pieces) and books to the Victoria and Albert Museum (known then as the South Kensington Museum). On Jones and his collection, see The Jones Collection (1883) and Kauffmann (2004).
The engravings have been attributed to Theodor de Bry as they are similar in technique and quality to those on a mirror frame signed by him in the Green Vaults (Grünes Gewölbe), Dresden (Hayward: 1976, p.295).

See Hayward (1976), p. 295 for attribution of much of the engraving on the plates to de Bry.

840-1882