Salimbeni Cigarette Case Art Nouveau Style Hand-Painted Miniature Pheasant

Rectangular rounded pill box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with hand painted miniature fire-enamelled in Louis XVI style, second half of the 18th century, and fine hand-eng...

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...

Rectangular table cigarette case with rounded corners in sterling silver 925/1000 gold plated with beautiful miniature fire enamelled and hand painted by the painter Beatrice Mellana reproducing a "still life" by the Flemish painter Willem Claes Heda. Dimensions cm. 5.7 x 9 x 1.7. Weight gr. 174. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1969 and manufactured in Florence in numerous 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...

Shaped table box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with fine fire-enameled engraving on the lid and hand-painted floral miniature in 18th century French Empire style. Dimension...

A hand-painted majolica lidded jar / box or tureen in the shape of a pheasant hen sitting on a basket, made by Sarreguemines around 1900. This beau...

Majolica pheasant tureen signed Sarreguemines, circa 1910.

French Majolica pheasant tureen from Caugant, circa 1950.

An antique Japanese Meiji era covered enamel over brass trinket or jewelry box. Circa: late 19th century to early 20th century. The ware is enameled with a polychrome image of a roos...