silver wax-jack (bougie-box, taper-box) - Italy
The wax jack was a container or a support holding up a taper, treated with wax or turpentine, lit
to heat the block of sealing wax used to fasten letters and documents. Usually, a personal seal with a
design cut into the bottom was pressed into the hot wax to leave personal identification. After the seal
hardened, it was almost impossible to secretly open the letter, because the wax would break.The wax jack was a common endowment for a desk writing set, along with the inkwell, sand container and bell. Occasionally wax jacks were used as a mobile light, perhaps because they were more stable than taper sticks, blew out less easily and gave a better light. The bougie-box or taper-box was a cylindrical container to hold the wax-taper coil when not in use. The cover was originally flat and a tube at the top of the cover permitted the coiled taper to emerge. Some had a chain-attached candle estinguisher.
This is a silver wax-jack (bougie box, taper box) made in Italy (Regno Lombardo Veneto) at the mid of the 19th century. It has the shape of a cylindrical container with beaded lid, handle and domed cover.
It has hallmarked with "Mondo e Trioni" (800/1000 silver), FA (silversmith) and another unreadable mark. The wax-jack is 3 1/2 in. high (cm. 9) and was bought from an Italian dealer through the Internet.
This item is not for sale, but most of my pieces were bought through the Internet. On the right bar of this page there are some links to websites of silver and antique dealers
This is a page of Silvercollection.it "A Small Collection of
Antique Silver and Objects of vertu",
a 1000 pages widely illustrated website offering all you wish to know about
antique silver, sterling silver, silverplate, sheffield plate, electroplate silver,
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