Identifier: illustratedcatal00amer_8 (find matches)
Title: Illustrated catalogue of the art and literary property collected by the late Henry G. Marquand
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: American Art Association Kirby, Thomas Ellis, 1846-1924 Sturgis, Russell, 1836-1909
Subjects: Marquand, Henry G
Publisher: New York : American Art Association
Contributing Library: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Library
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

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The bending of a metal so little pliable ascopper or brass, and the carving or casting of figures in high relief, were early abandoned in the Westin favor of the freer and simpler champleve manner, in which the figures are merely incised, and thebackground cut away to receive the enamel. But figures cast in full relief were frequentlyaffixed, as in the cross, No. 1062. Many important works were done in this manner. The tombsof Walter Merton, Bishop of Rochester, and of Aymar de Valence, of Westminster, were coveredwith enamelled plaques from Limoges; and in France, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,a bishop could hardly be said to have been decently buried if he were not encased in enamel. The artistic ideals of the Renaissance brought about another and more revolutionary change.The precious metals came in vogue together with a return to the ancient mode of figures in relief(but now rendered with adequate knowledge), and these were covered with translucent enamels, which
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colored but did not conceal them, excepting the flesh parts, which at first were left in the metal.But it was found more pleasing and harmonious to cover these with opaque white enamel and littleby little, the opaque enamels invaded the other parts, allowing, as they did, of greater freedom inthe modelling and greater variety in the color. The results are seen in the precious little picturesof the Seasons, by Jean Penicaud III., and the plaques, by Leonard Limousin, of the magnificent altarscreen in this collection. But the transformation in technique did not stop here. The habit of working throughopaque enamel to a ground of another color, most often black or blue, gave rise to the school ofenamel painters in grisaille, which form became the chief means of expression. From 1520 thesegrisailles are of capital importance. Their peculiar beauty depends on the intimate union of two distinct processes—the loadingof the lights in opaque white pigment; the scraping down to the black groun

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