William Base & Sons Furniture

Art Deco sterling silver inkwell by John & William Deakin of Chester, England, circa 1921. The inkwell has a single back hinge to open the lid and a saucer cap as well as the origina...

French Art Deco palisander and pewter inlaid inkwell with 2 crystal wells.

Large rectangular table box with long rounded sides in 925/1000 sterling silver with fire-enamelled stripes in Art Deco style. With “lost” hinge, i.e. semi-invisible. Dimensions cm. 10.5 x 15 x 2.3. Weight gr. 548. Inspired by drawings by Louis Cartier from the early 1900s in Art Deco style and recreated for Cartier USA in the 1980s, manufactured in Florence in the Salimbeni company headquarters with completely manual execution by artisan artists with thick and thick slabs reinforcements suitable for supporting numerous high-fire enamelled firings at about 800° C. About cooperation Salimbeni and Cartier. Our first meetings with the Cartier USA Company took place through the Giorgini Company, the first "Buying Office" set up in Florence immediately after the Second World War, which had the purpose of bringing together Florentine, and also Italian, producers with American buyers, who especially appreciated the artistic objects still manufactured by artisans who still took inspiration from the Italian Renaissance, using techniques handed down from generation to generation. Mrs. Gina Pestelli, wife of a Florentine retail jeweller, was in charge of contacts with Cartier USA, above all an employee, while her daughter, also for Giorgini, took care of the fashion that in those years was affirmed in Florence with the events of "Pitti ". With their help, we began to supply frames and boxes in sterling silver gold plated with malachite and other semi-precious stones. At the same time, the official buyer of Cartier, Mr. William Smith, began to appreciate and commission the first objects with fired enamels, a process of which we have always been specialists. In 1975 we began exhibiting at the prestigious New York Jewellery Association Show, which we participated in both the February and July editions, for a good 26 years until 2001. In New York in those years the "Art deco style" was still very much appreciated, still mindful of the beautiful early 20th century architecture of the great buildings such as the "Crysler" or the "Empire State". We then began to produce frames, boxes, evening bags, "objets de vertu" and other objects in "art deco style" which were very popular with Mr. Smith who gave us some photocopies of Louis Francois Cartier drawings to reproduce them. Thus, numerous cigarette cases, powder compacts, evening bags, frames and table boxes were created exclusively for Cartier USA which, at the time, had the prestigious "Silver Department" on the first floor of the Cartier store on Fifth Avenue. An evening bag, with matching cigarette case and powder compact, were redone on the design created for a gift given to Mary Pickford at the time. In a 1986 Cartier catalogue...

A classic antique solid Silver Cigar Box / Cigarette Box with a highly polished silver exterior. The interior of the Silver Box has a cedar wood lined base and the lid is gilded. The interior has a removable wooden...

Art Deco inkwell with original inkwell glass vienna around 1920s. Original inkwell glass. Polished and stove enamelled.  

Art Deco, sterling silver-mounted shagreen table box, London, 1923, Charles Boynton & Sons, Ltd, makers. Measures: 6 1/4" wide x 3 1/2" deep x 2 1/4" high. Wood lined. Shagreen is be...

Art Deco, sterling silver cigarette case with gilt interior and hinged lid, Birmingham, England, year-hallmarked for 1927, W.T. Toghill and Co., Ltd. - makers. Sterling silver is eng...

Heavy Cartier sterling silver reeded table box from the mid-century modern era. Rectangular with domed and ribbed top; straight sides; ribbed front and ba...

Webster sterling silver hip flask from the early 20th century, with an engraved design at the center, having a screw top, measuring 5 1/8'' i...

Antique early 20th Century Dunhill silver plated cigarette case shaped hip flask with a consealed twist list. This case was made in Britain (Fabrication Anglaise), patent number 1075...

A superb 20th Century solid silver hip flask with silver hinged top. This flask has an outer design of a crocodile skin. Hallmarked sterling silver (925 standard), Paris, circa 1980,...

Silver plated hip flask designed in leather and engraved Gucci on the bottom.