Antique Silver-Gilt Skeleton-Escapement Timepiece Snuffbox

A very fine silver gilt and Imperial Yellow guilloche enamel singing bird box with timepiece, by C. A. Marguerat, with a Nightingale on the lid. The Nightingale has appeared in many...

Italian silver gilt and enamel card case with fine watercolour. Beautifully engraved silver case with exceptional silver work on the bottom. The top and sides are mottled with enamel...

A silver gilt and jewelled pill box probably Austrian but with English import marks for London, 1905. Very fine quality with the silver gilt completely intact and mint within the box...

A very early 19th century and fine engine turned silver gilt musical snuffbox. The case stamped F.M. and with early 19th century Swiss export marks and European import marks. Comb bar stamped C.Z bedplate C6. Serial number 147. The cylinder movement with three train weighted escape, 23 part sectional comb with all teeth in pairs, comb bar and fitting screws blued, engraved in script in bedplate verso- 'Jn. Pre. Desire, A Geneva, fecit, an 1813'. Playing a complex single air, in the small superbly engine tooled case...

Round snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling Silver gold plated with hand-painted miniature pastoral image fired enamelled. 18th century French style. Diameter cm. 8 cm high. 1.8. Weight gr. 171. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1968 on inspiration from previous boxes also manufactured in the Salimbeni company headquarters with manual workmanship by talented artisan artists with a thick plate suitable for supporting numerous glazing firings at high heat 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...

Rectangular snuffbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with two-tone translucent stripes fired enameled on guillochè and fine hand-engraved on all sides, French Empire Napoleon...

Octagonal snuff box in gilded 925/1000 silver with English Queen Anne style borders and sides with fired enamels painted like lapis lazuli stone. On the lid, a very fine fire-enamell...

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...