Giorgio Salimbeni Boxes

Octagonal table box in 925/1000 sterling silver with fire-enamelled Art Deco design. Dimensions diameter cm. 15.8 high cm . 8.2. Weight gr. 974. Designed by Giorgio Salimbeni for Cartier USA in the 1980s, inspired by objects designed by Louis Cartier around 1920 and manufactured in Florence in various specimens, also in parure with other objects and in different colors, in the headquarters by the Salimbeni firm with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick slab and large reinforcements suitable for withstanding numerous high-fire enamelled firings at about 750°<800° C. About cooperation Salimbeni and Cartier. Our first meetings with the Cartier USA Company took place through the Giorgini Company, the first "Buying Office" set up in Florence immediately after the Second World War, which had the purpose of bringing together Florentine, and also Italian, producers with American buyers, who especially appreciated the artistic objects still manufactured by artisans who still took inspiration from the Italian Renaissance, using techniques handed down from generation to generation. Mrs. Gina Pestelli, wife of a Florentine retail jeweller, was in charge of contacts with Cartier USA, above all an employee, while her daughter, also for Giorgini, took care of the fashion that in those years was affirmed in Florence with the events of "Pitti ". With their help, we began to supply frames and boxes in sterling silver gold plated with malachite and other semi-precious stones. At the same time, the official buyer of Cartier, Mr. William Smith, began to appreciate and commission the first objects with fired enamels, a process of which we have always been specialists. In 1975 we began exhibiting at the prestigious New York Jewellery Association Show, which we participated in both the February and July editions, for a good 26 years until 2001. In New York in those years the "Art deco style" was still very much appreciated, still mindful of the beautiful early 20th century architecture of the great buildings such as the "Crysler" or the "Empire State". We then began to produce frames, boxes, evening bags, "objets de vertu" and other objects in "art deco style" which were very popular with Mr. Smith who gave us some photocopies of Louis Francois Cartier drawings to reproduce them. Thus, numerous cigarette cases, powder compacts, evening bags, frames and table boxes were created exclusively for Cartier USA which, at the time, had the prestigious "Silver Department" on the first floor of the Cartier store on Fifth Avenue. An evening bag, with matching cigarette case and powder compact, were redone on the design created for a gift given to Mary Pickford at the time. In a 1986 Cartier...

This rectangular table box is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Crafted from 925/1000 sterling silver and gold-plated, it features a hand-painted fire-enameled miniature by Beatrice Me...

Rounded rectangular snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling silver with fine hand-painted fire-enamelled miniature depicting the Head of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Dimensions cm. 5.5 x 7 x 1.8. Weight gr. 105. Designed by Giorgio Salimbeni in 1975 in Art Deco style and executed in numerous specimens, at the specific request of the firm Tiffany & Co., in Florence in the headquarters of the Salimbeni firm with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick slab and large reinforcements suitable for sustaining numerous high-fire enamelled firings at approximately 750 < 800° C. Miniature is a very ancient technique which consists of painting works in small proportions. It was born for the decoration of the first letter of the paragraph of the books. Over the years, however, this technique is refined and enriched, then moving on to precious personal items. Hand-painted miniatures can be done with multiple different techniques. The most important that we use on our articles are of three kinds: 1) Fire enamel. 2) Water tempera on an ivory plate. 3) Painted on mother-of-pearl. Fire enameled miniatures: On a first layer of enamel generally white or very clear or even transparent suitably liquefied at a temperature of about 750° C, the chosen subject is painted using miniature colors which are as many colored crystals, ground and reduced to a very fine, almost impalpable powder washed and purified in distilled water with the addition of small quantities of deoxidizing acids which, diluted with essential oils (usually essential oil of solder), can be mixed to form a palette of colors. With very fine sable hair brushes you draw the subject starting from the perimeter and then gradually adding various layers of color. It is necessary to carry out various firings very often so that the colors harden and are not absorbed by the underlying glaze as, during the subsequent firings at 750 ° C, during liquefaction, it would spread irremediably. Hence the need to form the painting a little at a time, cooking it numerous times. Therefore it is necessary to proceed with numerous retouching, often overlapping different colors that only the painter's experience knows. A beautiful miniature needs from 20 to over 50 firings and is finished when the painter deems he does not have to further intervene. Some colors must have darker tones than others because then, by superimposing the transparent enamel placed at the end of the miniature, they fade. This transparent layer, called “fondant” in jargon, must be smoothed and polished like all other translucent enamel colors. The miniatures with water tempera colors are painted on real...