. Enamels . seen in the galleryat South Kensington. The colouring is chieflybright blue and green, some purple and yellow,and a little thin opaque red. In these examplesthe face or flesh is left in plain silver; the onlyexample in the gallery of the flesh coloured overbas-relief is a German work of Mother and at any rate of the five triptychs come fromthe same workshop, though all are labelled as ofdifferent origin. An attempt has been made toclaim these as English work, and we should allbe glad to call them so, but nothing seems to beknown of their history, nor have we any othermean
. Enamels . seen in the galleryat South Kensington. The colouring is chieflybright blue and green, some purple and yellow,and a little thin opaque red. In these examplesthe face or flesh is left in plain silver; the onlyexample in the gallery of the flesh coloured overbas-relief is a German work of Mother and at any rate of the five triptychs come fromthe same workshop, though all are labelled as ofdifferent origin. An attempt has been made toclaim these as English work, and we should allbe glad to call them so, but nothing seems to beknown of their history, nor have we any othermeans by which we can prove it, and though theypossess what are thought by some to be Englishcharacteristics, they are generally known asItalian. Labarte gives a full account of these trans-lucent enamels -^n relief as practised by theItalian goldsmith - painters, and as he says, they executed these so well that it needed apractised eye to distinguish them from truepaintings in enamel, and he quotes Vasari, who. CHAMPLEVE ENAMELS 113 described this as a sort of work upon gold andsilver commonly called enamel, which is aspecies of painting united with sculpture. Noother enamel work was known in Italy at thistime, or if known, ignored; the stiffness andtechnical limitations of the early mediaeval enamelsin opaque colouring on copper never seem tohave met with acceptance in Italy, where, asLabarte tells us, the great artists who, duringthe second half of the thirteenth century, shookoff the Byzantine yoke, had struck out into newpaths. Finding enamel suitable for decoratingwork in gold, they sought to employ it in someother manner. The time was one of great luxuryand ostentation, hence gold and silver werelargely used in all church work and in the housesof noblemen. Domestic vessels and other objectswere made of the precious metals only; trans-parent coloured enamels were therefore used bythe skilful hands of the Italian craftsmen, thefigures being drawn naturally, as they so wellcoul
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectenamela, bookyear1912
