Colorful and precious

Enamelling held high status in Western art from the Middle Ages until well into the Early Baroque. Enamel objects were distinguished by extraordinarily skilful workmanship and the harmonious interplay of exquisitely crafted metalwork with the luminously vibrant colours of the enamel itself.

In jewellery enamelling reached its zenith in the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries. Alongside pendants featuring religious or mythological subject matter executed after prints used as templates, primarily decorative ornamental jewellery objects began to gain in importance. The sumptuous design of these colourful and precious jewellery objects as status symbols and objects for flaunting the wearer’s wealth and social rank was their salient feature.

The sheer range of available enamelling techniques linked with gold and valuable gemstones provided numerous possibilities for application and expression.

Enamel, produced as either a translucent (transparent) or opaque (non-transparent) material, is a glass mass fused on to a metal ground.

The champlevé (‘raised ground’) technique entails filling grooves incised into the metal ground with molten vitreous enamel.

Enamel en ronde bosse is the term for a technique in which curved or three-dimensional forms are coated with enamel.

And painted enamel is a complicated process in which layering enamels of different colours produces sophisticated scenic representations