Title: Italian Silver Clam Shell Hinged Trinket Box By Ruzzeti Gow
Shipping: $20.00
Artist: N/A
Period: 20th Century
History: N/A
Origin: Southern Europe > Italy
Condition: Museum Quality
Item Date: N/A
Item ID: 6725
Beautiful Ruzzeti Gow Italy 925 Sterling Silver Clam Shell Hinged Trinket Box. Outstanding signed Ruzzeti & Gow Italian sterling silver mounted clamshell hinged trinket box of exquisite color and form. Hallmarked Ruzzeti & Gow 925 Italy as shown. Measures approximately 2 1/2 by 2 3/8 inches. Opens and closes well with only slight gap as shown last two photos. Note the beautiful color of the textured shell. A very nice little box for special treasures. I like and think you will too. Very good vintage condition, as described above. Minor wear from age and normal use. Would further benefit from light polishing. Otherwise no apparent issues. No monogram. ''The silver heightens the contrasts, and it enhances the texture of the outside, while the inside stays intact.'' The silver is not meant to one-up nature, but ''to ennoble it.''
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/29/garden/beach-house-proud-shhh-hear-the-surf-in-midtown.html
MR. GOW moved to New York after a stint working in Dallas as the curator of the private art collection of the developer Trammell Crow. He got an M.B.A. at Southern Methodist University and, in 1989, began working at Sotheby's. In 1995, his good friend Giampiero Ruzzetti came to town with a few seashells that had been silvered in Rome and proposed that they begin selling the shells as a sideline.
The business took off, and Mr. Gow, who had studied malacology -- the branch of zoology dealing with mollusks -- while taking a degree in botany at Durham University in northern England, now found himself in a crash course in international shell buying: he wanted to take care, he said, to avoid trafficking in any shells from endangered species.
