Enamel may be defined as a vitreous glaze fused to its base by heat. As used in connection with jewellery the ground is always of metal, but it may also have glass or pottery as a foundation. It is applied to the metal in the form of a powder moistened with water. It is dried and placed in a furnace heated to a pale orange heat. The particles of glass melt and run together into a smooth coating. This process is repeated till the desired thickness is obtained.
Enamels as used for jewellery are :
Champleve, in which the ground is removed, leaving a design, or walls of cells standing up in metal, between which the enamel is placed.
Cloisonne, in which the walls to contain the enamel are added, in the form of thin strips of metal.
Basse Taille, in which the design is carved at the bottom of a sunk space and shows through the transparent coat of enamel.
Plique a Jour, a kind of cloisonne without a metal ground.
Filigree Enamel, in which the containing wires are either twisted or of fancy patterns, and the surface is not ground smooth.
Painted Enamels, and paintings on enamel ground with china colours, are also set in jewellery.
Several of the above processes are often used in one piece.
Forms in relief coated all over with opaque or translucent colours are said to be ornamented with encrusted enamel.
This art was well known to the Ancient Britons, who were celebrated for their work before the coming of the Romans, and a passage is often quoted as a proof of this from hones of Philostratus (a Greek sophist at the court of Julia Domna, wife of the Emperor Severus):
“They say that the barbarians who live in the ocean pour these colours on heated brass, and that they then become hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made upon them.”
Byzantine craftsmen were the makers of numerous pieces, both large and small, which were widely disseminated through Europe. During the Middle Ages, Limoges was a centre of great activity in this direction (what are generally known as Limoges Enamels, but which had much better be called Painted Enamels, came later).
During the Renaissance a unique class of modeled pendants encrusted with enamels was made. From this zenith the use of enamel dwindled by slow degrees to the paltry and trivial prettinesses of the nineteenth century. There was a great revival of its use in the early twentieth century; but to those who love the old work the bestowal of the title on the coarse blobs of blue and green sometimes used for so-called “Art” jewellery seems little short of desecration. However, there was a proportion of excellent work done.
