Enamels (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...certain periods; these were given originally by the Abbe Texier; but since those days many more examples have been discovered, and put together in collections, and although one may judge by similarities of treatment that this or that casket came from the same workshop as a certain pyx, yet it seems that each workshop kept the same traditions of treatment strictly for a long period of years. For instance, four of the caskets in the British Museum have figures engraved and gilt and the ground and accessories enamelled, the ground invariably blue 'powdered, ' with rosettes shaded with white, red, yellow, the casket, which special feature, one would be tempted to think, denoted some one period; the remaining casket of the four has the heads simply engraved.in the flat metal. The other two of the six caskets, a marriage casket and a reliquary, are of similar workmanship, the figures being elaborately and beautifully enamelled; the drapery especially is fine, the ground being left in the copper, richly engraved on the surface and gilded. The flat lid of the marriage casket is a beautiful example of champleve, both ground and figures being richly enamelled with blue, green, and white; the heads are also engraved in the copper, whilst in the reliquary the heads at the sides are in relief, at the ends flat. Two of these six caskets represent the murder of St. Thomas a Becket, a favourite subject of this time. Many other things of interest are in the same room, notably a sword, of English workmanship, which was the State sword of Edward v. when Prince of Wales, with three lions on the shield in champleve enamel, and also three stall-plates, but we will leave these till we come to heraldic work. There are innumerable small pieces of interesting Limoges work in the Brit..