Lot 197: NELSON (HORATIO)

Signature ("Bronte Nelson"), plus secretarial subscription, cut from a letter in English, mounted with a steel engraving, 85 x 110 mm.

This rare form is the second of many variants of Nelson's signature and was first adopted on 13 August 1799 when he was granted the duchy of Bronte by the King of the Two Sicilies. It was to be continued intermittently, along with the more conventional baronial form of "Nelson", until he opted for a third variant, "Bronte Nelson of the Nile", on 21 March 1800; both these hybrid variants being frowned upon for placing his Sicilian title before his United Kingdom one.