Vintage Christmas Tree Enamel Brooch & Earring Set Antique Pin Rhinestones Xmas

$33.82 Buy It Now or Best Offer, Click to see shipping cost, 30-Day Returns, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: Top-Rated Seller callistodesigns ✉️ (42,879) 99.7%, Location: Tucson, Arizona, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 395015017940 Vintage Christmas Tree Enamel Brooch & Earring Set Antique Pin Rhinestones Xmas.

 I am selling this super cool vintage Christmas jewelry. I love this stuff. It reminds me of my grandma. She had about 15 different christmas tree pins and would switch the out and wear a different one everyday leading up to Christmas. These are really fun and would be a perfect addition to any ugly Christmas sweater party you may want to attend his year. Or would be a good addition to a collection. I have collected these for year now just because they remind me of my childhood.  I'm having to let go of stuff I've collected for a while because I need to raise money. So I hope it finds a good home out there. 

    This set is really pretty and has super super bright colors.   The colors are outstanding.

I got this at an estate sale, and the nature of estate sales are such that you often never really know the source of the items that you are buying, you have to do a lot of guessing as to the age, and where it comes from, so I am just assuming that this was an antique die cast from perhaps around 1940's or 50's or so, I am not sure though. 

It is really cute and nice, and I can not find anything like it for sale anywhere, so I hope it finds a good home out there.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you for looking at my listing.

SHIPPING:

We ship out within 24 hours of receiving a payment. We can combine shipping to provide you with cheaper shipping for the purchase of multiple items if you are interested, but PLEASE NOTE that we can ONLY give you a combined shipping discount if all items are paid for all at once in a SINGLE PAYMENT! 

RETURNS:

If you aren't totally and completely thrilled with you item for any reason, we accept returns for full refunds for any reason. So bid and buy with confidence. 

We pride ourselves on striving to make sure you have a happy and please y buying experience.  All of our items usually come with a free gift as well- just to show our appreciation to you as a buyer.  

Thank you for looking. 

Brooch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Detail of the Irish pseudo-penannular Londesborough Brooch, British Museum

A brooch /ˈbroʊtʃ/ is a decorative jewellery item designed to be attached to garments, often to hold them closed. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold but sometimes bronze or some other material. Brooches are frequently decorated with enamel or with gemstones and may be solely for ornament (as in the stomacher) or sometimes serve a practical function as a fastening, perhaps for a cloak.

The earliest known brooches are from the Bronze Age. As fashions in brooches changed rather quickly, they are important chronological indicators. Many sorts of European brooches found in archaeology are usually referred to by the Latin term fibula.

Contents

1 Fibula

2 Celtic brooches

3 Hair and portrait brooches

4 Gallery

5 Notes

6 References

7 External links

Fibula

Main article: Fibula (brooch)

Braganza Brooch, Hellenistic art, 250-200 BC, British Museum

The fibula (plural fibulae) is an ornamental clasp used by Romans, Greeks, Germanic peoples and also by Celts and migratory tribes in Europe from the Early Bronze Age. They may have replaced fibulae made of more perishable Neolithic materials, such as bone to as late as 800 AD.[citation needed] Fibulae are useful type-objects: carefully catalogued local typologies, dating and distribution of fibulae can help date finds where neither numismatic nor ceramic materials provide a secure date. Fibulae were shaped somewhat like a large safety pin and were used to hold clothing together. They came in many varieties and held prominent significance for the identity of the wearer, indicating ethnicity (until local costume became Romanized) and class. Elaborately designed fibulae were an important part of Late Antique dress, and simpler ones were part of Roman military equipment.

The same types of fibulae can often be found on either side of the Roman limites, both among "Roman" and "barbarian" populations. The cultural interplay of elite objects designed to show status can be quite complex. For example, Lawrence Nees, Early Medieval Art[1] notes fibulae depicted in  diptychs of Stilicho and his entourage:

Disk pin with woman giving birth, flanked by antelopes from Luristan bronze.

The type of fibula worn by Stilicho and his son, and by Turcius Secundus, occurs also among metal works of art commonly termed barbarian, as new Germanic figures usurped the symbols of imperial authority. It is likely that this type originated among Celtic groups and came to be adopted as an exotic fashion by Roman aristocrats, becoming 'naturalized' as an important Roman emblem, and then exported.

Ancient fibulae are prized items for collectors since they are well preserved in many cases and are not difficult to obtain; divorced from their cultural context, they still present a variety of shapes and decoration.

Celtic brooches

A hair brooch from the 19th century, in the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

A distinct tradition of penannular brooches and the related pseudo-penannular types developed in Early Medieval Ireland and Scotland, producing some of the most elaborately decorated brooches ever made, including the Tara Brooch.

Hair and portrait brooches

From the eighteenth century through the Victorian era it was fashionable to incorporate hair and portraiture into a brooch.[2] The practice began as an expression of mourning, then expanded to keepsakes of loved ones who were living.[2] Human hair was encased within the brooch or braided and woven into a band to which clasps were affixed.[2] It was not uncommon for miniature brooch portraits to incorporate ground human hair as pigment.[2] Two sided swivel brooches would display a portrait on one side and a lock of hair on the other; the latter could be crafted with semiprecious stones to resemble a bouquet.[2]

Painting with Fire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Painting with Fire (PWF) is the name given to an immersion process for creating torch fired enamel jewelry. This process is the focal point of torch fired enamel jewelry workshops taught by Barbara A. Lewis, written about in her book, and discussed in Belle Armoire Jewelry,[1][2][3] Handcrafted Jewelry,[4] Bead Trends,[5] Stringing[6] and Bead Unique.[7]

Contents

1 Traditional Enameling Methods

2 The Painting with Fire Process

3 The PWF process with iron and sterling silver

4 References

5 External links

Traditional Enameling Methods

Historically, enameling is the application of glass-on-metal (See vitreous enamel). Traditional enameling methods, such as Cloisonné and Grisaille, require expensive kilns and often years of training and experience.

The Painting with Fire Process

The torch firing of enamel, a process that requires a fuel source such as propane or map gas, is inexpensive and accessible to the jewelry artist who has neither the time nor the financial resources to create a traditional enamel studio.

The predominant process for producing torch fired enamel jewelry involves placing a cold and pre-washed metal piece (typically copper) on a tripod, heating the piece with a hand-held gas-fueled torch and sifting enamel onto the heated metal. This method, while less expensive than kiln-fired enameling, can be slow and pose significant safety concerns.

More than 40 years ago, Joseph Spencer of Safety Harbor, Florida, pioneered Multi-Torch Fired Enameling[8] Barbara Lewis, a long-time ceramic artist and student of Spencer, has applied Spencer’s process to develop the Painting with Fire (PWF) Immersion Process.

Unlike the usual tripod-based torch firing methods, the PWF Immersion Process uses a mounted, inexpensive stationary torch and heating the unwashed cold metal in the flame using a welding tig rod (stainless steel mandrel). The heated metal is then immersed directly into the powdered enamel (Thompson Enamel 80 mesh opaque or transparent), then reheating and repeating the immersion process three times – a total of no more than 60–90 seconds per piece. Using Lewis’ patent pending Bead Pulling Station,[9] the thrice-coated enamel bead is then gently pulled from the mandrel and allowed to fall into a simple bread pan filled with garden vermiculite.

The PWF process with iron and sterling silver

Other kiln and torch firing processes for producing enamel jewelry have typically been limited to pure copper or expensive fine silver. These other methods can be used to enamel sterling silver, but only after completing the laborious process of depletion gilding. With the PWF method, if using transparent enamels in cool colors (blue or green), there is no requirement to heat and dip the oxidized silver into pickling acid. The immersion method involves the same three-times heating and immersion of the sterling piece, attached to the stainless steel mandrel, and coating with transparent enamel.

Lewis’ PWF method also pioneered the enameling of lightweight iron filigree beads. The PWF immersion method allows for artistic variations using multiple combinations of opaque and transparent enamels or reducing the oxygen to create smoky hazes. These variations and other applications of the PWF method are discussed in a "ning" network.[10] The PWF immersion method is the subject of Torch Fired Enamel Jewelry – A Workshop in Painting with Fire.[11]

Vitreous enamel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2010)

Cloisonné enamel plaque, Byzantine Empire, ca. 1100

Detail of painted enamel dish, Limoges, mid-16th century, attributed to Jean de Court, Waddesdon Bequest

The murder of Thomas Becket, detail from a reliquary in champlevé enamel, Limoges

Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C (1,380 and 1,560 °F). The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitreous coating on metal, or on glass or ceramics.

The term "enamel" is most often restricted to work on metal, which is the subject of this article. Enameled glass is also called "painted". Fired enamelware is an integrated layered composite of glass and metal.

The word enamel comes from the Old High German word smelzan (to smelt) via the Old French esmail,[1] or from a Latin word smaltum, first found in a 9th-century life of Leo IV.[2] Used as a noun, "an enamel" is usually a small decorative object coated with enamel.

Enameling is an old and widely adopted technology, for most of its history mainly used in jewelry and decorative art.

Since the 19th century the term applies also to industrial materials and many metal consumer objects, such as some cooking vessels, dishwashers, laundry machines, sinks, and tubs. ("Enamelled" and "enamelling" are the preferred spellings in British English, while "enameled" and "enameling" are preferred in American English.)

Contents

1 History

2 Properties

3 Techniques of artistic enameling

4 Industrial enamel application

5 Building cladding

6 Gallery

7 See also

8 Notes

9 References

10 Further reading

11 External links

History

Chinese cloisonné enamel wine pot, 18th century

Ancient Persians used this method for coloring and ornamenting the surface of metals by fusing over it brilliant colors that are decorated in an intricate design and called it Meenakari.

Mina is the feminine form of Minoo in Persian, meaning heaven. Mina refers to the Azure color of heaven. The Iranian craftsmen of Sasanian Empire era invented this art and Mongols spread it to India and other countries.[3] The ancient Egyptians applied enamels to stone objects, pottery, and sometimes jewelry, though to the last less often than in other ancient Middle Eastern cultures.

The ancient Greeks, Celts, Georgians, and Chinese also used enamel on metal objects.[4]

Enamel was also used to decorate glass vessels during the Roman period, and there is evidence of this as early as the late Republican and early Imperial periods in the Levant, Egypt, Britain and around the Black Sea.[5] Enamel powder could be produced in two ways, either by powdering colored glass, or by mixing colorless glass powder with pigments such as a metallic oxide.[6]

Designs were either painted freehand or over the top of outline incisions, and the technique probably originated in metalworking.[5] Once painted, enameled glass vessels needed to be fired at a temperature high enough to melt the applied powder, but low enough that the vessel itself was not melted.

Production is thought to have come to a peak in the Claudian period and persisted for some three hundred years,[5] though archaeological evidence for this technique is limited to some forty vessels or vessel fragments.[5] French tourist, Jean Chardin, who toured Iran during the Safavid rule, made a reference to an enamel work of Isfahan, which comprised a pattern of birds and animals on a floral background in light blue, green, yellow and red. Gold has been used traditionally for Meenakari Jewellery as it holds the enamel better, lasts longer and its luster brings out the colors of the enamels.

Silver, a later introduction, is used for artifacts like boxes, bowls, spoons, and art pieces while Copper which is used for handicraft products were introduced only after the Gold Control Act, which compelled the Meenakars to look for a material other than gold, was enforced in India.[3]

Initially, the work of Meenakari often went unnoticed as this art was traditionally used as a backing for the famous kundan or stone-studded jewellery. This also allowed the wearer to reverse the jewelry as also promised a special joy in the secret of the hidden design.[7]

In European art history, enamel was at its most important in the Middle Ages, beginning with the Late Romans and then the Byzantines, who began to use cloisonné enamel in imitation of cloisonné inlays of precious stones. This style was widely adopted by the "barbarian" peoples of Migration Period northern Europe. The Byzantines then began to use cloisonné more freely to create images; this was also copied in Western Europe. The champlevé technique was considerably easier and very widely practiced in the Romanesque period. In Gothic art the finest work is in basse-taille and ronde-bosse techniques, but cheaper champlevé works continued to be produced in large numbers for a wider market.

From either Byzantium or the Islamic world, the cloisonné technique reached China in the 13-14th centuries. The first written reference to cloisonné is in a book from 1388, where it is called "Dashi ('Muslim') ware".[8] No Chinese pieces that are clearly from the 14th century are known; the earliest datable pieces are from the reign of the Xuande Emperor (1425–35), which, since they show a full use of Chinese styles, suggest considerable experience in the technique.

Cloisonné remained very popular in China until the 19th century and is still produced today. The most elaborate and most highly valued Chinese pieces are from the early Ming Dynasty, especially the reigns of the Xuande Emperor and Jingtai Emperor (1450–57), although 19th century or modern pieces are far more common.[9] Starting from the mid-19th century, the Japanese also produced large quantities of very high technical quality.[10]

Grey clouds, typical enamel cooking gear from the Dutch DRU factory, popular in the 1950s

More recently, the bright, jewel-like colors have made enamel a favored choice for jewelry designers, including the Art Nouveau jewelers, for designers of bibelots such as the eggs of Peter Carl Fabergé and the enameled copper boxes of the Battersea enamellers, and for artists such as George Stubbs and other painters of portrait miniatures.

A resurgence in enamel-based art took place near the end of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, led by artists like Alexei Maximov and Leonid Efros. In Australia, abstract artist Bernard Hesling brought the style into prominence with his variously sized steel plates.[11]

Enamel was first applied commercially to sheet iron and steel in Austria and Germany in about 1850.[12] Industrialization increased as the purity of raw materials increased and costs decreased. The wet application process started with the discovery of the use of clay to suspend frit in water. Developments that followed during the 20th century include enameling-grade steel, cleaned-only surface preparation, automation, and ongoing improvements in efficiency, performance, and quality.[13]

Properties

Vitreous enamel can be applied to most metals. Most modern industrial enamel is applied to steel in which the carbon content is controlled to prevent unwanted reactions at the firing temperatures. Enamel can also be applied to copper, aluminium,[14] stainless steel,[15] cast iron or hot rolled steel,[16] as well as to gold and silver.

Vitreous enamel has many excellent properties: it is smooth, hard, chemically resistant, durable, scratch resistant (5-6 on the Mohs scale), has long-lasting color fastness, is easy to clean, and cannot burn. Enamel is glass, not paint, so it does not fade under ultraviolet light.[17] A disadvantage of enamel is a tendency to crack or shatter when the substrate is stressed or bent, but modern enamels are relatively chip- and impact-resistant because of good thickness control and thermal expansions well-matched to the metal. The Buick automobile company was founded by David Dunbar Buick with wealth earned by his development of improved enameling processes, circa 1887, for sheet steel and cast iron. Such enameled ferrous material had, and still has, many applications: early 20th century and some modern advertising signs, interior oven walls, cooking pots, housing and interior walls of major kitchen appliances, housing and drums of clothes washers and dryers, sinks and cast iron bathtubs, farm storage silos, and processing equipment such as chemical reactors and pharmaceutical process tanks. Structures such as filling stations, bus stations and Lustron Houses had walls, ceilings and structural elements made of enameled steel. One of the most widespread modern uses of enamel is in the production of quality chalk-boards and marker-boards (typically called 'blackboards' or 'whiteboards') where the resistance of enamel to wear and chemicals ensures that 'ghosting', or unerasable marks, do not occur, as happens with polymer boards. Since standard enameling steel is magnetically attractive, it may also be used for magnet boards. Some new developments in the last ten years include enamel/non-stick hybrid coatings, sol-gel functional top-coats for enamels, enamels with a metallic appearance, and new easy-to-clean enamels.[18]

The key ingredient of vitreous enamel is a highly friable form of glass called frit. Frit is typically an alkali borosilicate chemical with a thermal expansion and glass temperature suitable for coating steel. Raw materials are smelted together between 2,100 and 2,650 °F (1,150 and 1,450 °C) into a liquid glass that is directed out of the furnace and thermal shocked with either water or steel rollers into frit.[19]

Color in enamel is obtained by the addition of various minerals, often metal oxides cobalt, praseodymium, iron, or neodymium. The latter creates delicate shades ranging from pure violet through wine-red and warm gray. Enamel can be transparent, opaque or opalescent (translucent), which is a variety that gains a milky opacity with longer firing. Different enamel colors cannot be mixed to make a new color, in the manner of paint.

There are three main types of frit, usually applied in sequence. A ground coat is applied first; it usually contains smelted-in transition metal oxides such as cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, and iron that facilitate adhesion to steel. Next, clear and semi-opaque frits that contain material for producing colors are applied. Finally, a titanium white cover coat frit, supersaturated with titanium dioxide, creating a bright white color during firing, is applied as the exterior coat.[citation needed]

After smelting, the frit needs to be processed into one of the three main forms of enamel coating material. First, wet process enamel slip (or slurry) is a high solids loading product achieved by grinding the frit with clay and other viscosity-controlling electrolytes. Second, ready-to-use (RTU) is a cake-mix form of the wet process slurry that is ground dry and can be reconstituted by mixing with water at high shear. Finally, electrostatic powder that can be applied as a powder coating is produced by milling frit with a trace level of proprietary additives. The frit may also be ground as a powder or into a paste for jewelry or silk-screening applications.

  • Brand: Unbranded
  • Type: Jewelry Set
  • Jewelry Department: Fashion
  • Vintage: Yes

PicClick Insights - Vintage Christmas Tree Enamel Brooch & Earring Set Antique Pin Rhinestones Xmas PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 0 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 119 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 42,879+ items sold. 0.3% negative feedback. Top-Rated Plus! Top-Rated Seller, 30-day return policy, ships in 1 business day with tracking.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive