Antique Austrian Silver & Enamel Cigarette Case c. 1880 Leda & the Swan

A gorgeous Antique solid Silver Cigarette Case with an Enamel Image on the front cover. This Image shows a nude woman with long brown hair surrounded by a cresting wave in the ocean....

A lovely Antique German Silver & Enamel Erotic Cigarette Case with a beautiful Enamel Image of a Woman on the front cover. This Image is rendered...

An exceptional antique Edwardian solid Silver Table Lighter on a black stone plinth. This ball shaped Table Lighter is supported on three double scroll feet. The Lighter has a centra...

A beautiful Silver Cigarette Case decorated with a beautiful Enamel Image on the front of the case. The Image shows a woman with rich golden brow hair covered in part with a diaphano...

Rectangular table cigarette box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent fired enamels on guillochè and fine miniature hand painted...

Rectangular table box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent two-tone striped fired enamel on guillochè and hand-engraved ornament. Late Empire Napoleon III style. ...

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...

6238-7239- Pocket cigarette case with spring button in 925/1000 fire-enamelled sterling silver with beautiful vessel miniature hand-painted by th...