Height: 25.5cm (10in)
Iron and marble. Canon ball with lift off silver flaming finial lid concealing and inkwell within, on a gilt metal mount raised on a stepped and swept ebonised base applied with name Sebastopol in silver letters. Maker’s mark Charles Thomas and George Fox. Hallmarked London 1857.
A good example of the battlefield relics brought home from the Crimea and mounted as campaign trophies through retail firms such as Vickery of Regent Street, London. After a tortuous winter in the Crimea, the Allies finally addressed the difficulties of supplying the frontline troops besieging Sebastopol with the completion of a railway from the Allied base port of Balaclava in mid 1855. Thereafter the war was pushed on vigorously, and in September 1855, after a month’s incessant bombardment, the Malakoff and the Redan fortresses were taken by assault and Sebastopol fell. The Russians then destroyed the defences, evacuated the town leaving their sick and wounded behind them.