Inkstand

Despite the fact that ink corrodes pewter, inkstands and inkwells were often made of this metal. This round inkstand contains a removable semicircular inkpot covered by a hinged lid. The other half is divided in two and consists of a sander with a perforated top and a container with a separate lid intended for wafers. The sander would contain very fine sand, shaken onto writing paper to blot the excess ink and the wafers were used to seal finished letters. The three holes in the rim were intended to hold quill pens, usually made of a goose wing’s feather. The angel stamp struck underneath indicates that the highest quality of tin was used for this piece. The stamp is incomplete and only part of the tinsmith’s name is legible: M. WAL … possibly for Anna Maria Walgraven who was active in eighteenth-century Goes, thus far the only recorded Dutch tinsmith whose name starts with WAL.