Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/190

166 exposure to heat, and that they may with propriety be regarded as enamels.

The generally received opinion has been that enamels of this description were of oriental fabrication, and it is very possible, as Sir Francis Palgrave has suggested, that the enamelled portions of ornaments, such as the jewel of Alfred, were brought from the continent, either by way of Rome, or through that more direct intercourse with the East of which evidences might be adduced. There appear indeed to be certain grounds for the conclusion that works of this kind, exhibiting strong marks of the influence of oriental art, were produced in early times both in England and France, but it must be admitted that enamels unquestionably of Byzantine workmanship, exhibiting the conventional details of symbolism attributed to the Eastern Church, and bearing Greek legends, are identical in the peculiarities of construction with the specimens here noticed, as existing in England. Such, apparently, are the more ancient parts of the pala d'oro, the decoration of the high Altar at St. Mark's, Venice, executed at Constantinople, A.D. 976, by order of the Doge Pietro Orseolo. A small portion of this pala, as it has been asserted, formerly in the De Bruges collection at Paris, may now be seen in the series of enamels open to public inspection at the Museum of Economic Geology, Craig's-court, Charing Cross. It is an exquisite work upon gold, representing St. Paul, as indicated by the inscription—О АГІОС ПАVΛОС—the letters are arranged in a perpendicular line. In the peculiarities of the process of art this remarkable little specimen precisely resembles the Alfred jewel. The most precious example, however, of Byzantine enamels of this description, which I have had occasion to examine, is the representation of St. George, formerly in the cabinet of the duke of Modena, and now preserved in the choice collection of the Comte de Pourtalès Gorgier, at Paris.

The precise period to which we may assign the establishment at Limoges of a school of enamellers, whose earlier works exhibit evidences of Byzantine influence, has not been ascertained.