Viennese Austrian Silver Gilt Guilloche Enamel Gem Set Box

A very fine antique Austrian Viennese Secessionist silver guilloche enamel belt buckle by renowned silversmith Georg Anton Scheid (Austrian, 1838-1921) and dating from around 1900. T...

A rare and stunning Arts & Crafts Omar Ramsden silver and enamel cigarette box and cover. Rectangular in shape with a hinged cover featuring wire-work man-of-war sailing ship in roug...

An exceptional and rare antique silver snuffbox reading 'PRESENTED TO St. Mr. P CAMPION, 1st Bn 19th Foot, by His, BROTHER SERJEANTS, As A Mark of Their, Sincere Regard.' in its orig...

An extremely fine quality antique heavy gauge Japanese silver incense box, the cover inset with a copper and inlaid metal panel depicting a seated figure drinking from a large bowl a...

An unusual and stylish Danish Bronze box mounted with an enamel plaque with sailing boats marked Smedien and dating from around 1930. The rectangula...

A stunning and rare Austrian Wiener Werkstatte secessionist wooden dressing table box with linear patterning attributed to Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and dating from around 1912. The box was acquired as possibly by Bertold Löffler...

An absolutely stunning enamel box, French in origin with the boars head mark for solid silver (minimum 800/1000). The goldsmith's makers mark is also present, I think GB but a little...

An absolutely stunning large antique Viennese sterling silver pill box made from a hefty gauge of Austrian silver. All sides are decorated with a white guilloche enamel showcasing...

Rectangular table box in sterling silver 925/1000 gold plated with very fine hand-engraving Baroque style on the lid, fire-enamelled in 2 colours. In the center an ancient oval plate...

Square box in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent fired enamel on guillochè also on the sides. In the center, a beautiful hand painted tempera miniature on a vegetable ivory plate depicting the portrait of a 19th century lady, signed by the painter Anna Maria Manfriani. Dimensions cm. 12 x 12 x 2.5. Weight gr. 618. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1976 and manufactured in Florence in some 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...

A silver box with Guilloche, Industria Argentina A silver box with wooden interior. The box is decorated with guilloche pattern. Silver 925 (purity 925/1000) and marked with Indus...

Rectangular box with rounded corners in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with translucent fired enamel on guillochè with hand-engraved and enamelled Arab-style ornament. Dimensio...