Louis XVI White Photo Frame Sterling Silver Enamel on Guillochè Salimbeni

GUILLOCHE: This is a handcrafted process performed on mostly precious metals, resulting in surfaces engraved with complex, repetitive geometric patterns.

Guilloche engraving was invented in the mid-19th century in Switzerland by watchmakers to embellish the dials of their luxurious timepieces.

The technique involves engraving metal with a burin using a machine with mostly manual controls.

A copying tool, following the curves of several dies placed on the machine, transmits movement to the object being engraved, causing the burin to “cut” the metal. By shifting the positions of the dies and the copying tool, precise, intertwined geometric engravings are obtained, creating an almost infinite number of patterns, and their continuous differentiation certainly adds value to the objects produced.

The manual skill required to perform this operation is highly specialized; existing machines are very old, as there has never been a mass market, and especially for art conservation.

After engraving, the next step is typically firing enameling, a meticulous and time-consuming process in which the guilloche-engraved surface is covered with several layers of colored glass powder and fired in small special kilns at temperatures between 700 and 800°C.

The resulting transparency and perfection may require numerous firings, especially if multi-colored surfaces are being composed.

The inclination of an object’s surfaces can create significant difficulties both for guilloche engraving and during the enamel firing phase, as positioning the machine becomes more complex and requires great skill and expertise, while liquefying the enamel produces complex situations that only highly skilled artisans can achieve.

Guilloché engraving and enameling have been the core processes of Salimbeni 1891 for over a century and are found in nearly all of its products.

When crafting an object, Salimbeni 1891 begins with a drawing, which can also be provided by the customer, to handcraft the structure using silver sheets of varying thicknesses. Once the required shape has been achieved through welding and finishing—processes common to skilled silversmiths—the next step is the guilloché engraving and subsequent enameling, as well as all the final polishing and electroplating processes for gilding and/or other applications.

Our most complex and precious creations have required months of work for smaller objects, striving for a perfection that is generally not contemplated in artisanal work but which for us is the foundation of our daily lives.