Michele Oka Doner Furniture

another piece from my personal collection. wonderful handmade cigarette case from china. made by an unknown artist and retailed by the company woshing / shanghai. the stamp dates the...

Designed exclusively by Urban Art Home, this is a distinct and elegant decorative wood box made with lacquer and embellished with a sculpted sterling silver dragon. The square box ...

A fine antique Pre-Revolution Russian Imperial silver-gilt & cloisonné enamel coin purse/case, Moscow, 1899. The purse with the maker's mark in Cyrillic and the assayer's mark for Iv...

The whole casket is richly decorated. Standing on lions paw feet adorned with baroque motifs the scene on top depicts cupid stood beside two lovers (possibly) Daphne and Apollo. The ...

Carved silver box, 20th century. Small silver box carved with a great variety of motifs, all belonging to different artistic traditions based on Ro...

Norwegian Art Nouveau Pewter and Silver Lidded Box Set with Amber Cabochons, Norway, ca. 1900 Of rectangular form raised on four compressed bun feet, the hinged lid centred with a l...

This exquisite decorative object can be used to store small personal objects or small food items. It was crafted entirely in silver by skilled artisans in the shape of a pumpkin, whi...

Sterling silver pumpkin-box handcrafted, chiseled and embossed by expert silversmiths, the Lisi Brothers, in Florence. Its dynamic and hyper-re...

Oval rounded "soap" shaped snuff box in 925/1000 sterling silver with fired enamels above and below and hand-painted miniature of a horse's head, English "Art Nouveau" style, early 1900s. Measurements cm. 4.7 x 6.7 x 2. Weight gr. 96. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1980 and manufactured in Florence 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 high heat 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...

Silver and enamel box, E.F. Caldwell, New York, circa 1920. Depicting the golfer Bobby Jones.

Solid sterling silver box in the form of a chestnut. All handmade. Signed Fasano, Turin Italy. Measures: Depth 7.5 cm., width 15.4 cm., height 12.8 cm. Weight 340 gr.

Silver Swan Sugar Bowl. Italian neoclassical sterling silver lidded sugar bowl with swan/goose finial and lion head ring handles. Italian sterling ...