File:European enamels (1906) (14782870662).jpg

Identifier: europeanenamels00cuny_0 (find matches)
Title: European enamels
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Cunynghame, Henry H (Henry Hardinge), Sir, 1848-1935
Subjects: Enamel and enameling
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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ascarille sports a feather. Ah ! Francis Fs big nose had a keener scent—he left to artists to decide upon matters relating totheir art, and out of this there rose the College ofFrance, the Chair of Bourges, the printing houseof Clos-Bruneau, the splendours of the renaissanceand of Chambord—Let experts act is the secretof success. The instinct of good sense, if not ofself-preservation, should prevent the passengersfrom seizing the tiller-handle. The above passage very fairly explains the effectof Court patronage upon the arts, and shows thatthe same repressive policy which in the sphere ofgovernment ended in the ancien regime and theRevolution, also gradually stifled the glorious tradi-tions of France and degraded an art which hadproduced Amboise Castle down to the level ofdrawing-room upholstery. We have in consequence seen that during theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries the art ofenamel slowly declined, until it was only used forthe making of snuff-boxes and coat-buttons. 138
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CHAPTER VIII MINIATURE ENAMEL PAINTING IT now becomes necessary to consider a branchof enamelling which apparently sprang upabout the close of the sixteenth century,namely, the execution of miniatures upon enamelplates. In this case the metal was usually gold,covered with a layer of white enamel, upon whichdelicate work was stippled in various colours andfired. It is to the jewellers art that this branch ofenamelling must be traced. M. de Laborde, inhis valuable Catalogue of the Louvre Enamels,says as follows :— The great art of painting in Enamel ofLimoges kept its ancient procedure and continuedto be successful. But at the same time, the Art ofJewellery all over France, I might say all overEurope, strove with it, and produced those whiteEnamelled gold ornaments of which a small num-ber have come down to us, but which inventoriesand old bills complacently set forth in innumerablequantity. One gets tired of everything; whiteenamelled jewellery got out of fashion. It becamenecessary

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