[1] By including objects from Western Europe, Russia, Islamic countries, China, Japan, and America, it shows how these centres of enamel production influenced each other's styles.

[2] The best-known European enamellists are represented, including Peter Carl Fabergé, Cartier, and René Lalique, along with the Meiji-era Japanese artists who perfected the firing process.

[8] French workshops developed polychrome techniques in the early 17th century, giving their works much greater realism, similar to watercolour and gouache portraits.

[19] A silver and gold timepiece by Maison Vever was exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 as part of a display that won a Grand Prix for jewellery design.

A silver-gilt casket dated 1897 was commissioned by Queen Elisabeth of Romania as a gift for the artist Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ.

[23] A ewer with painted enamel was a wedding gift for William, Prince of Hohenzollern and Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

In the late 19th century, technological advances allowed for painted enamel panels of a much greater size than what could previously be produced.

The collection includes a two metres (6 ft 7 in) high depiction of the Crucifixion of Jesus in a Renaissance style which is the largest known single-piece enamel painting.

Geneva in the 18th century was successful at exporting jewellery and painted enamel, including gold snuff boxes, to the rest of Europe.

Subjects include Napoleon crossing the bridge at Arcole,[39] the Judgement of Paris,[40] Roman charity,[41] the infant Christ,[42] and Cupid disarmed by Euphrosyne.

[46] Mahmud II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, also adopted this practice, and the collection includes a snuff box from Geneva with his portrait inside the lid.

[51] His employees included the enamel artists Henrik Wigström, Michael Perkhin, and Hjalmar Armfeldt who are represented in the collection.

[52] The collection's objects from the House of Fabergé include timepieces, cases, frames, and a fan combining lace and gauze with silver, gold, and painted enamel.

[57] Champlevé enamel flourished in the Mughal Empire, especially during the reign of Shah Jahan in the 17th century, where it was used for personal jewellery, luxury objects and containers including hookahs.

[64] Niccolao Manucci, an Italian writer and traveller who visited the Safavid court in 1655, noted Shah Abbas II employed a team of French enamellers and supervised their work.

[66] The collection has several items from the Qajar period, including a silver-gilt hookah with portraits of people in Iranian and Western dress.

[66] By the turn of the 20th century, the court of Ottoman Turkey had adopted the European convention of gifting decorative objects, with relevant emblems, as marks of favour.

These include snuff boxes from Geneva and Paris depicting Mahmud II and a Bosporus landscape, one bearing the name of Muhammad Ali of Egypt in diamonds.

[68] Japanese artists did not start producing cloisonné enamel until the 1830s, coinciding with the sharp fall in the Shogun's power, and followed by the Meiji Revolution, but their techniques advanced quickly.

[69] From 1870 to 1900, the form went through a very rapid evolution which introduced translucent colours, dark black backgrounds, and smoother surfaces without cracks or pitting.

[90] Among the imperial works is a throne table, 90.5 centimetres (just under three feet) long, made for the Qianlong Emperor and bearing his seal.

[92][91] Evenly firing such a large object would have presented a challenge, so the colourful and consistent result illustrates the skill of the Guangzhou workshops where it was made.

]"[96] Art dealer Geoffrey Munn described the diversity of the exhibition as "astounding", observing Khalili "hasn’t followed the clichéd routes of enamel.