As my blog hits its 9th anniversary (yeah that’s right, the end of October, 2018, is its NINTH year!), I decided to post about something a little different. And this year, the little different thing is something I picked up at my local market – the first time I visited the market after getting home from a recent overseas holiday.

Finding stuff at flea-markets is very hit-and-miss. Sometimes you can find amazing stuff for great prices…and sometimes all you discover is overpriced junk or cheap trash that really makes you wonder why you bothered to wake up so damn early in the first place!

Anyway, the posting for this anniversary is the beautiful, quirky little silver case or box which I picked up this week just gone. Originally a cigarette case, I decided to repurpose it for holding my peppermints – a function for which it is surprisingly well-suited! So what is this item, and what’s its history?

So, what Is It?

I bought this beautiful silver cigarette or cigarillo case at my local Sunday flea-market. It had no dents, no scratches, marks, scrapes or any other major damage. There was some loss to the decorations applied to the silver surface of the box, but was about it! The catch and spring were good and strong, the hinges were in excellent condition, and the hallmarks were sharp and crisp. A bit of haggling and arm-twisting saw a decent discount, and I became the proud owner of what is now – my second piece of Romanov-era Russian silverware!

Measuring approximately 3.5, maybe 4 inches across, and about 2 inches wide, this cute little Russian cigarette case just jumped out at me because of its distinctive decorations, which I’ll go into more detail later on. The four square little tabs or hooks on the inside of the case (for holding the straps that kept the cigarettes or cigarillos in place when the case was opened) are still there, and replacing the strap should be pretty easy, if anyone ever decides to!

The Hallmarks

As with most antique European silverware, this piece comes with hallmarks. The Russian hallmarking system is very similar to other major European hallmarking systems, so in that respect it’s pretty easy to read. It differs in that they sometimes use the Russian or Cyrillic alphabet, instead of the more conventional Roman alphabet which is common elsewhere, but still – if you know what you’re looking at, the marks are pretty easy to read.

The case came with two sets of hallmarks – one on each half of the case. As with most European hallmarking systems, the Russian layout comes with four hallmarks:

The date-mark, the purity mark, the maker’s mark, and the assay mark.

The date-mark tells you when the piece was assayed.

The purity mark tells you what purity the silver is (how much silver and how much copper is in the alloy).

The maker’s mark tells you who made the piece.

The assay mark tells you where it was assayed, and – almost unique to Russian silver – the name of the assay-master of the office where it was certified.

The marks on this case are the two Cyrillic letters which are the maker’s initials. This is followed by the double-mark of assay-master, and date-mark stacked on top of each other. In this case, the assay master is Veniamin Vasilyevich Savinsky, and the date of assay is 1873.

The next mark along is [84], which refers to ’84 Zolotnik’, the Russian system of grading silver-purity. A zolotnik was an old Russian coin. The name was recycled to be used as the name for the silver-grading system in the 1700s (it’s like saying that “$50.00” = 95% silver, and “$40.00” = 80% silver, etc).

In this case, ’84 Zolotnik’ = 87.5% silver purity.

The final mark is the assay-mark for the city of Moscow. Cities with assay-halls existed throughout the Russian empire, including in Kiev in the Ukraine, and of course – St. Petersburg, where the famous House of Faberge, jewelers to the Romanov Court, had their headquarters.

Niello Decoration

When it comes to antique silverware, there are many, many different types of decorating: Repousse, engraving, chasing, cloisonne, enameling…and niello. If you’ve never heard of niello (“n’yellow”), then that’s probably not too surprising, since it’s not really that common these days as a decorative technique.

So what is ‘niello’?

Niello is a fine powder or paste made up of crushed sulphur and silver, with copper or in the past – lead – added to it. Ground into dust, the powder (or sometimes, paste) is applied to engraved decorations on a piece of silverware. The piece of silver, with the niello powder applied to it, is then heated. The powder softens, melts and runs into the grooves of the engraving or any other areas hollowed out by decorating tools. When it cools, the powder hardens and is baked onto the silver underneath. It’s like a crude form of enameling.

After polishing, the applied niello turns a distinctive black or midnight-blue colour. In this way, the decorated piece of silverware takes on a contrasting two-tone dark-light or ‘black-white’ appearance, with the niello’d areas turning black or midnight-blue, and the non-applied areas retaining their silvery sheen.

Niello as a decorative technique has been around for centuries. It dates back, with stops and starts, to at least the Ancient Romans and examples of nielloware have been found in various metals (brass, bronze, copper, silver, gold etc) for thousands of years. Famous Roman author, Pliny the Younger, who gained everlasting fame for his eyewitness accounts of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, left a recipe for creating niello powder, which includes using silver sulphide, copper and crushed silver powder.

Niello reached a peak in the Medieval and Renaissance eras around the 1200s-1500s, lasting into the Early-Modern era of the 1600s up to 1800. A person who was competent in doing niello decorations was called a niellist.

Goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers and niellists were important figures in the 1400s and 1500s – as workers of fine metal, they had the skills to engrave, carve and shape the pieces of type required to cast the hundreds of little blocks required for the new movable-type printing-press which came on the scene starting in the 1450s.

Russian Nielloware

Niello allowed for creativity in decoration, but it had one major drawback – just like the Ford Model T – it only came in black!…or very very very dark blue…if you angled the piece against the light…just right. Because of this, in most countries, niello started losing out in favour against other decorative techniques such as guilloche, or engine-turning, and enameling. For one thing, enameling could be transparent, and it came in all kinds of colours, patterns and styles.

While most countries in the 1800s started switching over to enamel decoration on silverware – France, Britain and most other European countries in particular, Russia held onto niello and Russian silverware is famous for its considerable use of niello decoration at a time when most silversmiths in other European countries had abandoned it for much more versatile enameling.

Niello was applied to all kinds of things by Russian silversmiths and goldsmiths. Pocketwatches, card-cases, boxes, cigarette cases, spoons, napkin-rings and especially – jewelry.

Closing Thoughts

Admittedly, niello has never REALLY been my thing. I didn’t really buy this piece because it was niello. I bought it more because of the colour, the pattern, the condition, and the fact that the case was made in Imperial Russia! I don’t know a great deal about antique Russian silver, so this is a bit of a learning experience for me. This brings my collection of antique Russian silverware up to the heady number of…

…two!

Two is a collection…right?

Either way, I’m glad to have it, and glad to share it, and its history, with the world!