A gilt-bronze Chamberlain's Key, period of Catherine II, possibly made by the Imperial Tula workshops, the bow in the form of the crowned Imperial double-headed eagle and cipher of Catherine II, with foliate entwined fluted shaft and an X-shaped bit, 20.1cm x 7.1cm/Note: A chamberlain's key was worn rather than used as a functional key and provided a demonstration of the right of access to the Empress' private chambers. The keys were generally adorned with a purple ribbon trimmed with silver thread. A similar key dated for the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796) can be found in the Hillwood Museum, Cat. 14.16; another similar sold at Christie's, 18th April 2007, Lot 171 for $60,000. The present key is from the collection of Thomas Dimsdale (1712 - 1800), an English banker, politician and doctor. Dimsdale was particularly well known for his work on the prevention of smallpox by inoculation (variolation). The method of inoculation, as a precursor to vaccination, worked by inserting a mild form of the disease under the skin of a patient to elicit anti-bodies against a more virulent form of the disease. Dimsdale published to great acclaim The present method of inoculating for the small-pox in 1767 which went into five editions and was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1769. In 1762, Dimsdale was invited to the Court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg, who, in a quite daring and forward-thinking fashion had herself, her son Paul and over one hundred and forty members of the Russian Imperial Court vaccinated. After a resounding success, Dimsdale was generously rewarded with over £12,000 as well as the title of Baron of the Russian Empire which came with a generous pension. Catherine had obviously not been entirely sure of the success of the Dr Dimsdale who attended the court with his son Nathaniel. She had arranged for them to be quickly extracted from the country (fearing potential backlash if matters didn't go to plan) and had arranged for a relay of horses to speed them out of Russia should the process not be successful. The English doctor had been given unprecedented access to the Imperial Palace and Catherine's trust in her physician was so complete that she invited him away from the pressured public sphere into her private apartments in the Imperial Palace, (Ward, L., pp 136-138). His personal care for the Empress at Tsarskoye Selo after her inoculation gave him daily access to her private apartments and the current key would have allowed him to demonstrate the Empress' trust and give him almost free rein. Dimsdale published further works on inoculation and returned to Russia in 1781. A book on the work of Thomas Dimsdale with Catherine the Great has been published as 'The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great defied a deadly virus' by Lucy Ward in 2022/Provenance: The present key was given to the current owner's father in the 1920s by his grandmother Ethel Gordon Fenwick (nee Manson) as an encouragement for him to enter the world of medicine whilst he was in hospital as a boy. Ethel played a major role in the history of Nursing in the United Kingdom, lobbying parliament for the registration of nurses in the UK and once successful became the first nurse to be registered in the United Kingdom. Thence by descent to the current owner