The Inkwell and the Imagination

A history of the inkwell as a source of inspiration.

- NICHOLAS ADAMS

I have a beautiful inkwell that I inherited from my grandmother. It has her initials in Copperplate script on the silver cap. It must have been a special present, on her graduation from high school, perhaps. I have been tempted to use it; the cap seals tightly enough, and it has a beautiful cut glass base. But I am content to keep my inks in their bottles, huddled together on their shelf-the overflow in some small drawers. Of course, the main reason I don't use an inkwell has to do with the fact that my pens have their own ink reservoirs they are fountain pens in the manner patented in the 19th century almost 200 years ago by Petrache Poenaru. I go to my ink bottles once a week, sometimes less, sometimes more. Like most readers of this magazine, I suspect, I probably spend more energy resisting purchases!

The dip pen and its inkwell are different, of course. If you dip your pen and brush off the excess before each ripple of words (and repeat), you develop an affectionate relationship with whatever holds your ink. With a dip pen, the inkwell can never be far from your hand or from your mind. I recall my grandmother had what I now realize was an Esterbrook J. I don't recall the inkwell being used-but it was there on her desk (as it is now on mine).

For much of its life the inkwell has been an essential if relatively mundane object. In the most ancient times, ink was held in oyster shells. In ancient Rome cylindrical, flat-bottomed wells appeared, not much different from those we find in colonial America. In the Middle Ages highly decorated wells were developed and, in the Renaissance, classical figures or architectural ornamentation could be added for the wealthiest clients.