Box engraving on the lid and hand-painted floral miniature Salimbeni

Pill Box Floral miniature and fine hand-engravings Art Nouveau style Salimbeni.Shaped pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucen...

Shaped snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with fired enamel inserted in a fine hand engraving and with round miniature diameter cm. 3.3 hand painted always with fire enamels depicting a sailing ship. Early 19th century Viennese Baroque style. Fine hand engraving on all sides and bottom. Measurements cm. 7.5 x 7.5 x 2. Weight gr. 151. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1976 on inspiration of ancient original artifacts and manufactured in Florence at the Salimbeni company headquarters in several specimens, also with different colors and miniatures, with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick slabs and large reinforcements suitable for supporting 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 ivory...

Charming Porcelain Trinket Box painted in purples, gold, green and royal blue. Upon opening the box there is a cute flower design inside the lid. This piece would certainly be a fant...

Exceptional Louis XV vari-color gold and black enamel snuff box - featuring a bouquet of flowers with two attending butterflies to the top (all in yellow, white, rose and green gold)...