Posted 6 years ago
highlander56
(82 items)
It has snowed, rained, hailed, etc. in CO the past 10 days. We had a window yesterday of no bad storms so I ventured out for a few hours to run errands and troll my local ARC.
Just when I thought it was a dry run, I stumbled across this lovely Italian jewelry box. This is number 4 in my small collection and quite unlike the others. It wasn’t until I got home and pulled out my loupe that I realized how intricate the wood mosaic was on the top and around the box. There do not appear to be any missing, but good grief...one would need x-ray vision to find them. I tried to photograph the top in hopes you can see it.
It measures 8-3/4 x 6-3/4”. The feet are some kind of Lucite or something. The boxes I have are more recent and have gold feet. It has a little hidden Reuge music box that winds up and plays a tune I don’t know. It sounds great. There is also an old gold label that says “Hand Inlaid Made in Italy”. It’s not lined...just pretty basic.
However, it is very dirty. I can tell that most of the shellac, varnish or whatever it is they use to seal these boxes is mostly gone except for in a few spots.
My question to you experts is what should I use on this? I should probably put a coat or two of something on it after cleaning as I would think it would protect the wood...but also keep the teeny, tiny mosaics from falling out. Any suggestions?
Thank you so much for looking and any words of advice!
Terry
UPDATE: I couldn’t stand looking at this dirty thing. So I got my Guardian Clean & Polish and went to work slowly. It took 2 rags to get through all the grime, but what a difference. I posted the clean picture of the top side. The shine came through and I found only one tiny scuff mark.
On the downside, granted there is nice inlay on the top. But looking through my loupe at the design in the center and edges, it appeared that was almost micro-mosaic inlay. LOL...it’s not. Not even close. I don’t know what it is outside of a design that looks like wood Inlaid mosaic that was framed with larger wood inlay. It’s still pretty and the music box still works. For $3.99 + tax I can’t grouse too loud.
