Pill Box oval horse s head miniature Sterling Silver Salimbeni

Round, curved pillbox in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with fired enamels above and below, and a hand-painted miniature of a horse's head, in Viennese Art Nouveau style, secon...

Square rounded pill box with rounded sides in 925/1000 sterling silver gold plated with white fire enamel, above and below, with miniature horse's head hand painted by the painter Ro...

Oval rounded "soap" shaped snuff box in 925/1000 sterling silver with fired enamels above and below and hand-painted miniature of a horse's head, English "Art Nouveau" style, early 1900s. Measurements cm. 4.7 x 6.7 x 2. Weight gr. 96. Designed by Franco Salimbeni in 1980 and manufactured in Florence 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 high heat 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...

Snuff box "savonette" shape in 925/1000 sterling silver with fire enamel and hand painted miniature on white background depicting a heads of running horse . English "Art Nouveau" st...

An exceptional, fine and impressive vintage Elizabeth II English sterling silver and enamel mirror compact, an addition to our ornamental eq...

English silver horse racing snuff box, Birmingham 1829 A silver snuff box with a scene from horse racing on top of the hinged lidded box. On the sides a guilocche pattern and inside...

A superb antique 19th Century English sterling silver equestrian horseshoe vesta case match box and striker. Hallmarked, Birmingham, England 1887. Acquired from a collector's estate ...

A ‘Palais Royal’ miniature horse-drawn carriage trinket box made with mother of pearl, silver-plated horses and gold plated metal. 19th century.