Know Everything About Some Decorating Metals for Porcelain
Here we are
going to look at the details of enamels. What is enamels and what are
its uses and what is its story. The different types of enamels will
be looked and their uses as well.
Enamels
Enamels are
types of glass, clear or opaque, used for painting on porcelain and
also for decorating metals. The
latter include bronze, copper, silver and gold. There are several
different ways in which metals may be enameled:
Champleve
Small spaces
are scraped from, or molded in, the surface of the article and filled
with enamel. This technique was used first many centuries ago and is
said to have been introduced to both the Orient and Europe from
Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire.
Cloisonne
The body of
the article is covered in a series of cells (or 'cloisons') by means
of wire soldered on to the surface. The cells are filled with enamel
powdered and mixed into a paste; careful firing melts the powder
without disturbing the soldering, and after the enamel has been
leveled and polished the metalwork is gilded. The Chinese and
Japanese were very skilful workers in this technique, and Chinese
pieces of the Ch'ien Lung period are not uncommon. Earlier examples
are scarce.
Plique a jour
Rather similar
to cloisonne, but the metal wires form open windows filled with
transparent enamels.
Basse Taille
The surface of
the patterned metal is covered with a coating of transparent enamel
through which the design can be seen. This method and the foregoing,
plique a jour, were used principally for the decoration of jewelry
and snuffboxes.
Painted
enamels: usually these are in colors on a white ground; the white
being fired on a copper base before further colors are added. Grounds
of colors other than white are used in a similar manner.
The French at
Limoges made finely painted plaques from the end of the fifteenth
century onwards. Examples are rare and valuable, but they have been
imitated. European enamels
introduced to China in the eighteenth century inspired copies, and
the Cantonese made them plentifully in the reigns of Yung Cheng and
Chien Lung. Many of them are very well painted, some with European
scenes and figures copied from engravings. It should be remembered
that they have been made continuously with little variation in style,
but modern pieces do not have the careful finish of the old.
One of the
best-known names connected with enamels in England is that of
Battersea; a factory to which a great amount of the work made
elsewhere is popularly ascribed. At York House, Battersea, just
outside London, enameled copper wares were made between 1753 and
1756. Its principal claim to remembrance is that it was the seat of
the first use of printing for decorating enamels; a process used
shortly on porcelain. Pieces definitely made at Battersea are few,
and the majority of eighteenth-century English enamels were made in
the Bilston area of south Staffordshire. Contemporary
Continental examples were of similar design; these and modern
copies present many problems to the collector.
This fine mixture
of glass was very popular in France, which were made at Limoges
from the end of the fifteenth century. During the reigns of Yung
Cheng and Chien Lung Chinese made plenty of enamels copied from the
Europeans. And England was known for its fine enamels made from the
Battersea factory. These were how the making of enamel was spread and
it became popular. |
