| A sadeli work box of large scale worked with fine geometric patterns of cut and stained ivory, pewter and silver, with bands of ebony and ivory. The lid opening to a fitted sandalwood interior above a drawer with writing slope and original ivory ruler. All the metal ware is silver including the key.
India, Bombay, circa 1800
Width 17 inches 43 cm Depth 11 1/4 inches 29cm Height 5 1/4 inches 13cm
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The box belonged to Frances Russell Hall and dates to the mid nineteenth century, she was the grand daughter of George Byng, 6th. Viscount Torrington.
The provenance is particularly interesting as Frances married Charles Davis Lucas who was under her fathers (W.H.Hall) command and had served in the Royal Navy throughout the far east including India. Lucas received the first ever Victoria Cross for an outstanding act of bravery.
In the early hours of June 21, 1854, while taking part in an attack on a heavily defended Russian fortress at Bomarsund during the Crimean War, Midshipman Lucas, then aged 20, picked up a heavy, unexploded shell with a hissing fuse from the deck of his ship, HMS Hecla, to toss it into the sea.
Although the shell detonated before it hit the water, only minor damage was caused to the vessel. The ship’s commander, Captain W. H. Hall, instantly promoted Lucas to acting lieutenant and noted in his log that without his “great coolness and presence of mind . . . dozens of lives if not the ship’s company would have been lost”.
Although there was a tradition of army service in the family, Lucas chose to serve in the Navy and enlisted when he was just 13. By the time he was 18, he had been on active service in the Far East and had been awarded the Indian Service Medal.
After the Crimean War, and the award of the Victoria Cross, Lucas’s naval career prospered and by the time he retired from service in 1879 he was a rear-admiral. |
