Box with fired enamels painted like lapis lazuli stone and horse racing Salimben

Shaped rectangular table box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with fine hand-etched fire-enameled engraving painted like lapis lazuli stone and...

Octagonal table snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with black fired enamel inserted in a hand engraved drawing and with fired enamelled miniature, hand painted by the p...

Octagonal table box in 800/1000 silver gold plated with translucent enamel on guilloché and beautiful enamel miniature hand painted by the painter Renato Dainelli in early 1900s Engl...

Rounded square pill box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with white fired enamel, above and below, with hand painted horse head. Dimensions cm. 5.2 x 5.2 x 2.3. Weight gr. 117. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1966 on the inspiration of previous artefacts made in the English Art Nouveau style of the early 1900s and manufactured in the Salimbeni company headquarters in Florence in numerous specimens also with different subjects, with completely manual execution by artisan artists with a slab of high thickness suitable for supporting numerous enamelled firings at around 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...

A very fine antique Sevres style French porcelain dresser box or casket. With extensive gilt highlights and turquoise, red & white enamel jeweling throughout. Decorated to the ...

A very large and unusual 19th century French Louis XVI style dore bronze mounted Sevres cobalt blue ground box signed Sarat. This box is truly a masterpiece. Sevres boxes...

This is a very petite little jewel of an enameled box. The interior fabric has not been replaced. The ormolu and enameling is finely rendered.

This is a fabulous antique French Sevres ormolu mounted cobalt blue soft paste porcelain jewellery casket, Circa 1870 in date. The shaped hinged ormolu mounted cover is superbly de...