Antique Grand Tour Souvenir Card or Cake Tray: Eglomise Balmoral Castle Painting
With all the recent Royal's news, we thought it would be fun to list a fabulous antique souvenir of Balmoral Castle: this is one that would have been a Victorian era souvenir of the Grand Tour visitor's trip to Balmoral, Victoria's favorite country manor, and the site of her rumored dalliances with Mr. Brown. One might almost imagine the tiny painted figures there on horseback to be the pair. The back-painted glass or 'eglomise' miniature painting has a pearl underlayment which makes the building shimmer in light. The architectural detail is amazing when you consider the painting itself is well under 3" in diameter. The tray was likely originally called a 'visiting or calling card tray', set on an entryway table for callers to leave their engraved name cards. These trays are fabulous to collect now, and are fun to use for cakes, desserts or just to display with your collection. I tilt mine up so they're wonderfully self-framed pictures/artwork that intersperse my antique books on our b