Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/184

160 between the champ-levé mode of operation, and the surface- enamels of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, may thus be characterized. The design was chased in the lowest possible relief, or even in simple lines, on the face of a plate, usually of silver; a transparent coat of variously coloured enamels was then laid over it, no lines of metal being exposed, and the design was indicated and defined by the work beneath, seen through this transparent medium. This kind of enamelling appears to have been practised in perfection towards the later part of the fourteenth century, and I have been led by careful observation to conjecture that it was first devised by the artificers of Italy. Works of this description frequently exhibit a remarkable perfection in the use of a great variety of colours, which, small as the subject may be, are perfectly distinct, as if laid on with the brush; it is not easy to imagine how the degree of heat requisite to fuse the enamel and fix it upon the plate, could be employed, without disturbing the precise arrangement of colours and blending them together in motley confusion. The chased metal plate coated with transparent enamel seems to have led the way to the art of superficial enamelling in opaque colours, or rather colours laid upon an opaque ground, whereby the metal plate was entirely concealed. These were applied at first to plates of considerable thickness, in order to support a greater degree of heat, and the surface of the earlier examples sometimes appears embossed, the enamel being laid on so thickly as to produce a slight degree of relief; the ornaments, jewels, and other details are also considerably raised by means of little semi-globular silvered spangles, overlaid with brilliant transparent colour, which gave to them the appearance of gems. Work of this description is technically termed in France, à pailliettes.

Enamels of this kind have been considered by recent writers on the continent as supplying the step of transition in the series, and leading directly from the earlier champ-levé work to the beautiful productions of the school of Limoges, during the reign of Francis I. and the later part of the sixteenth century. But I think that the true transition enamels, which these writers appear to have overlooked, were those above described, in which the operation of chasing the metal was still employed, but in a different manner to that which marks the character of the earlier work.

The opaque enamels of the later part of the fifteenth, and