Enameling Blog of Cloisonné & Many Other Enameling Techniques

Welcome to my Enameling Blog of Cloisonné, Plique a Jour, Champlevé Enameling and yes Painting Enamels.

This is a donation of everyone’s time to share and further the education of the fine art of enameling. I am very happy to answer questions to help you, please ask here so many can join in. At the bottom of this page is a comment section. Look forward to hearing from you.

I share my life’s passion and inspiration with anyone who wishes to read. I am a self- taught enamelist and goldsmith. I did not live in the US where there is a knowledge base and to my advantage, my knowledge came from trial and error and today I continue to build on trial and error.

Read, test, fail, analyze, try again and you will surely learn.

View my jewels: http://www.cloisonneenameljewelry.com

Thanks to Bard Graduate Center an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world.

The Fashion for Cloisonné Becomes More Widespread

Christofle had serious competition from other renowned goldsmiths, beginning with Lucien Falize (1842–1897) and André Fernand Thesmar (1843–1912), who created masterpieces of goldsmithing and jewelry. Even so, the partnership of Émile Reiber and Antoine Tard played a key role in making cloisonné enamel fashionable. By 1878, when Reiber left the house of Christofle, the die was cast: fascination with the technique was spreading and the phrase “cloisonné enamel” was beginning to evoke a style.

Théodore Deck (1823–1891), the leading French ceramist of his time, introduced innovative “cloisonné enamels,” by which he meant “work decorated with designs in relief; the hollows are filled with transparent colored enamels that can be superimposed.

First I have heard of transparent with they needed for plique a jour.

This manner of fabrication made its first appearance in the West at my exhibition [in 1874, at the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs].”32 Deck was well acquainted with Émile Reiber, a fellow Alsatian, and the two men collaborated closely. Reiber’s work made a profound impression on Deck, who asked him to design an impressive jardinière for his display at the 1873 universal exposition in Vienna.33 For his part, Reiber published Deck’s work in his periodical L’Art pour tous. The two men thought along similar lines, and Deck reflected on the question of contour, which he treated in relief and conceived as a transposition of cloisonné wires. In 1864, Eugène Victor Collinot (1836–1882) submitted an application for a patent for his relief enamel technique in which he wrote: “The aim of this process is the production of decorative cloisonné enamels modeled in relief on faience biscuit, porcelain biscuit, and other surfaces. The phrase ‘cloisonné enamel,’ borrowed from a specialty of Chinese vases, applies to my process only insofar as it clarifies my own idea: to enclose within cloisons [partitions], which keep them distinct from one another, the relief enamels with which I decorate my faiences.”34

Between 1859 and 1883, working in collaboration with Adalbert de Beaumont, the painter Collinot published a series of print portfolios intended to facilitate the access of artists and designers to the decorative vocabularies of various foreign cultures, including Arabic, Turkish, Venetian, Hindu, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and so forth.35

The faience manufactory at Longwy, in northeast France, later produced relief enamels in which areas of different color were not enclosed within metal wires but were surrounded by outlines executed in black pigment, to lively effect.

In 1877 the widow Rosalie Duvinage submitted a patent application for “mosaics combined with metallic cloisonné, for artistic objects and furnishings.”36 In fact, this “metallic cloisonné” was indistinguishable from a well known marquetry technique employing wood, ivory, metal, and mother of pearl that reached its apogee during the eighteenth century in luxury furniture made by the renowned ébéniste David Roentgen (1743–1807). The “invention” of the widow Duvinage amounted to the use of ivory as background, thin metal strips for the stems and branches of vegetation, and woods of various hues in the principal motif, all of which were glued to a wooden support with precision—but without any use of soldered cloisons.37 In many instances, the vegetal stems form a metallic network that helps to stabilize the composition as a whole. In other examples, such as the Duvinage cabinet in the Musée d’Orsay, there are no such vegetal stems, but thin strips of metal comparable to the wires of Chinese enamel separate and secure the pieces of ivory that constitute the ground. In all likelihood, the widow Duvinage resorted to this abusive use of the term “cloisonnement” to underscore her adherence to a striking visual aesthetic that was then much in vogue, thereby downplaying her indebtedness to a marquetry technique that had been in use for two centuries. Her use of materials—notably ivory, copper, and wood—whose colors made for strong contrasts also made her work seem analogous to the Far Eastern cloisonnés that were then so fashionable.

The case of James Tissot (1836–1902) remains exceptional. A successful painter, he also collaborated in the design of cloisonné enamels, an activity that was a byproduct of his fascination with the esoteric thought and spiritual traditions of the Far East. In the jardinière, a straightforward imitation of a Chinese object in his own collection, the landscape and figures are made legible by the use of contrasting colors. But the contours of these elements are all but obscured in the complex linear interplay of the background, in such a way that the conventional hierarchy between figure and ground is virtually nullified. Moreover, there are no straight lines in the composition, only irregular and asymmetrical curves that are difficult for the eye to follow. Tissot’s two vases demonstrate an ability to transform Sino-Japanese models into an original creation.38 The regular geometric motifs on the sides, which have no specific meaning, seem to make the surface vibrate and express the painter’s determination to manipulate the primary elements of foreground and background in a way that many of his contemporaries would never have dared do, namely to fragment the surface and geometrize the constituent forms. His impressive model for a fountainhead, entitled Fortune,39 made between 1878 and 1882, is a fulfillment of his artistic process. The figures and animals, sculpted with great exactitude, are contrasted with smooth enameled areas whose metal partitions trace small geometric motifs as well as the mysterious adage “Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre” (All things come to those who wait), translated into various languages and calligraphies.40

Émail de plique à jour (from French: “braid letting in daylight”) is, like émail en ronde boss, an invention of the Renaissance. It is similar to the cloisonné enameling technique, with the metal background removed to create a stained glass window effect. A framework of wires is soldered in the desired pattern – or a metal plate is sawn à jour to create a fretwork – and the partitions are filled with transparent or opalescent enamel. The pre-fired fondant would however soon fall through the openings if one doesn’t apply a base to it (as with cloisonné). For this purpose, the work is created on either a sheet of mica or a very thin plate of metal which would later be etched away in acid.

This technique became very popular at the dawn of the 20th century when master enamelers, as André Fernand Thesmar, started to revive this technique. During the Art Nouveau period, it was the medium of choice for artists such as René Lalique, Philippe Wolfers, and others. These works still command high praise today.

One of the few examples that survived from the 15th centuries is the Merode cup now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93263/the-merode-cup-cup-and-cover-unknown/

The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian years 1401 to 1500. In Europe, the 15th century is seen as the bridge between the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, and the early modern period.

By the 15th Century the skills of enamellers were gaining in complexity. The earliest known use of the plique-a-jour technique was in the 13th Century. The technique involves the use of translucent or transparent enamels fused to form a span across a network of cells, without a backing under the enamel. The enamel is thus the structure of the piece – a shell supported within the network of metal cells. It is similar to cloisonné but without the base support. Often a temporary backing is used to support the enamel during the firing and then it is removed by dissolving or polishing when the piece is complete. This is undoubtedly the most difficult technique of enamelling, but the results can be very spectacular. The silver gilt Mérode cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum dates from the 15th Century and is thought to be of Flemish or Burgundian origin. It is the only known piece of plique-a- jour from this early period.

Originally developed in the Byzantine Empire in 6th century AD, the plique-à-jour technique was adopted by Kievan Russia but was lost after the crushing Mongol invasion in the 13th century.
The technique was adopted also in Western Europe and the French term appears in inventories from the 14th century onwards. A full description of the process is illustrated in the Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on Goldsmithing and Sculpture of 1568.
The technique was revived in the late 19th century movement of revivalist jewellery, and became especially popular in Russia and Scandinavia. Works by Pavel Ovchinikov, Ivan Khlebnikov, and some masters working for Faberge are real masterpieces of plique-à-jour. Norwegian jewellers included David Andersen and J. Tostrup in Oslo, and Martin Hummer in Bergen. Art nouveau artists such as René Lalique and other French and German artists used plique-à-jour in small jewellery