Carved Snuff Boxes and Tobacco Boxes

Rounded rectangular snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling Silver gold plated with beautiful fire enamelled miniature hand-painted by the painter Renato Dainelli of a basket with flowers, in ...

Snuff Box rectangular in 925/1000 sterling silver with fine hand engraving, black fired enameled “niello” type, in early 19th century “Rococo” style. Snuff Box measurements cm. 4.5 x...

This is a joyful novelty- a Black Forest hand-carved Terrier box. A beautifully executed piece with exceptional detail, right down to the tail. This terrier’s hind legs are attached ...

Shaped snuff box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with fire-enameled stripes and fine oval enameled miniature in center cm. 3 x 4 hand-painted by ...

The elaborately carved snuff box with a scene of two mermaids on the cover and deeply carved shell on the reverse.

This wooden box is a Japanese tabako-bon, or 'tobacco tray,' used to store tobacco and smoking accessories. Believed to have evolved from the traditional ...

The mottled brown agate with translucence when held to light. The cover with a gold rope twist edge above hinged clasp with wreath and berry design above a cushion base

Probably Irish given the carved shamrock, with hinged top and robust leaf like carving. A small chip to bottom of toe and two small holes on the bottom likely from former mounting.

This wooden box is a Japanese tabako-bon, or 'tobacco tray,' used to store tobacco and smoking accessories. Believed to have evolved from the traditional ...

A little poem in wood, this early 20th-century Swedish tobacco box is a quiet testament to the beauty of everyday ritual. Hand-turned from golden-hued burled birch, its surface is al...

Royal House Antiques Royal House Antiques is delighted to offer for sale this stunning, hand carved Black Forest wood, smoking pipe cabinet or rack with inscribed top reading "Nil N...

Presentation Snuff box from the 18th century French School. A very important and rare Neoclassical oval box, made in Paris, France circa 1790. It was crafted with translucent natu...

Rounded rectangular snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling silver with fine hand-painted fire-enamelled miniature depicting the Head of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Dimensions cm. 5.5 x 7 x 1.8. Weight gr. 105. Designed by Giorgio Salimbeni in 1975 in Art Deco style and executed in numerous specimens, at the specific request of the firm Tiffany & Co., in Florence in the headquarters of the Salimbeni firm with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick slab and large reinforcements suitable for sustaining 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...