Description: A rare Australian silver and malachite ink stand, Julius Schomburgk (1819-1893), retailed by Joachim Matthias Wendt, Adelaide, circa 1870
the shaped rectangular slate base with a malachite veneered border, centred by a malachite box surmounted by a silver figure of an Indigenous Australian male, flanked by a pair of silver-lidded glass inkwells with silver sulphur crested cockatoo finials, raised on foliate-capped lion-paw feet, hallmarked 'JM Wendt, Adelaide', anchor and a lion passant
22 cm high, 26 cm wide
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Melbourne
Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above circa 1943
Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above in 2009
OTHER NOTES
Ludwig Julius Schomburgk arrived in Australia from his native Saxony in 1850. Already an accomplished gold and silversmith, he settled in Adelaide, where he was to design and manufacture commissioned works for the silversmith C.E Firnhaber and J.M Wendt.
While only a few examples of Schomburgk's works are known to bear his maker's mark, the exceptional quality of the execution of his designs, his naturalistic style and his use of malachite, are regarded as hallmarks of his workmanship. Schomburgk's commissions for Wendt were some of the finest and most expensive pieces in the retailer's inventory.
An ink stand of similar design is held in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. See J.B. Hawkins, Nineteenth Century Australian Silver, Antique Collectors Club, Suffolk, 1990, Vol. 2, p. 70, plate. 329 (illustrated)