Russian cloisonné enamel and silver Salt by 6th Artel

This Russian Salt (a decorative but functional salt cellar) was produced by the 6^th Artel during the final years of the Russian Imperial period. The Salt has a distinctive concave side profile, which curves outwards from the top rim downwards into a protruding register near the bottom and then narrows again to the base.

The Salt, which is made of solid silver, features an exterior surface that is profusely decorated with shaded cloisonné enamelwork. The decorative scheme features cloisons, encompassed by rope twist cloison wire, wrought into a variety of abstract and geometrical motifs and filled with shaded cloisonné enamel. The colour scheme employed throughout includes pastel shades of pink, green, and blue, in addition to stronger, unadulterated tones of blue, red, green, and orange. Cloison wire is massed at various points into protruding cone-like elements, and the wire is also used decoratively in its own right, particularly in the stylised tree motifs at the centre of the black-ground enamel medallions located at the four cardinal points of the cylindrical Salt. The silver of the Salt is moulded with stylised linear motifs immediately below the rim and along the protruding band near the base.

The Salt is marked underneath ‘6A’, which signifies the 6^th Artel, and with ‘88’, which designates 88 zolotnik Russian silver with a silver purity of 91.66%.