Old Fashioned Ink Well Porcelain Limoges Box

An old style ink well, the kind once found on every writing desk before ballpoint pens arrived, is captured in this porcelain box. The Limoges box was painted by hand in Limoges, France, a tribute to the art of the written word.

Dipped in History

For centuries, letters, poems and treaties were written with a quill or a dip pen and a well of ink close at hand. This piece calls up that slower, more deliberate way of writing, when every word was chosen with care. It is decorated by hand, so each ink well differs slightly from the next.

Penned in the 1700s

Small porcelain boxes became fashionable in eighteenth century France, when quills and ink wells sat on every gentleman's desk and snuff and pills were kept close by in porcelain. Give this one to a writer finishing a first book, a poet, a calligrapher, a lawyer or a teacher of literature. It suits a writing desk, a library shelf or a study beside a stack of letters.

Writer's Desk Companions

• Hand-painted porcelain from Limoges, France
• Fits a writing, literature or professional grouping
• Pairs with book, typewriter and mailbox pieces