Johnson, Walker & Tolhurst Decorative Objects

Art Nouveau silver plated repousse tobacco or jewelry box The top, front, sides and back are beautifully cast and feature panels with images of birds and flowers Good conditio...

A small French sterling silver pill box, Art Nouveau period, decorated with flowers and a gold gilt interior, circa late-19th century, France. Piece ...

Snuff Box Silver is in 925/1000 sterling. Snuff Box Silver has black fired enamels on guilloché. Snuff Box Silver has a lid with geometric design ...

Pill Box Silver is in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated 24 carats. Pill Box Silver is Rectangular with translucent fired enamels on guilloché. Pill Box Silver has a hand-painted m...

Pill Box Silver is in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated 24carats. Pill Box Silver is with translucent fired enamels on guilloché. Pill Box Silver has a hand-painted floral miniatu...

Domed oval pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent fired enamels on guillochè, top and bottom, with fine hand-engravings. Viennese Art Nouveau style second h...

This early 20th-century Art Nouveau enameled glass trinket or jewelry box, adorned with a charming cherry and cherry tree design, showcases exquisite French hand decoration. Its bras...

Pill Box Yellow floral miniature in Art Nouveau style Sterling Silver Salimbeni.Round pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent...

A fine quality Art Nouveau enamel decorated rectangular box dating from around 1900. Possibly Austrian, the box is made in brass with a hinged overlapping cover the top applied with ...

Round rounded pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent fired enamel on guillochè and hand-painted floral miniature on the lid. Viennese Art Nouveau style. Dia...

Oval pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with hand painted fine monochrome fire enamelled miniature depicting a landscape in Art Nouveau style. Dimensions cm. 4.5 x 5.5 x 1.4. Weight gr. 70. Designed by Giorgio Salimbeni in 1977 and manufactured in Florence in some specimens with various subjects and different colors, in the headquarters of the Salimbeni company with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick slab and large reinforcements suitable for withstanding numerous enamelled firings at about 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 ivory...

Pill Box oval with floral miniature Art Nouveau style Sterling Silver Salimbeni in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with hand-painted fire-enamel...