This and many other flowers, and occasionally fruits, were painted
in the same manner as a picture, on an enamel ground of uniform
colour--generally white, and sometimes pale blue, yellow, or black.
Small plaques enamelled and painted thus are popularly known by the name
of "Louis Treize" enamels, though the majority of them were produced
after Louis XIII's death in 1643.
About 1640 it became the custom occasionally to model the design in
relief with a paste of white enamel, which was afterwards painted with
vitreous colours according to nature. Towards the middle of the century
the background of the flowers was pierced and cut away, so that every
single flower, exquisitely modelled and coloured, stood out by itself.
In addition to tulips of every variety, and hyacinths, sunflowers, and
roses, all kinds of lilies were in favour, especially the tiger-lily,
the "crown imperial," and different species of fritillaries, whose
beautifully spotted or chequered blossoms were rendered in their natural
colours with striking fidelity. Flowers executed in this realistic style
for jewellery were arranged chiefly in garlands and festoons, in the
manner of the wreaths painted by Jan Brueghel round several of Rubens'
pictures, the flower pieces of such Dutch and Flemish painters as Jan de
Heem, Van den Hecke, Daniel Seghers, and Van Thielen, and the wood
carvings of Grinling Gibbons (himself Dutch by birth), which display the
same remarkable realism.
Among the goldsmiths and draughtsmen of the time who have left designs
for jewels in painted enamel are the Germans Heinrich Raab and Johann
Paulus Hauer, both goldsmiths of Nuremberg. Their engravings, with
natural flower ornamentation very finely designed and executed, were
published about 1650. They comprise crosses, étuis, scissor, watch, and
scent cases, and pendants--star- and bow-shaped, and set each with
a pendent pearl. Work in the same direction by the artists of the French
school is of great importance. Gédéon Légaré, though he practised the
pea-pod style, is the first to show a decided preference for natural
flowers in his engravings, which date from about 1640. He is followed by
three famous masters of flower ornament--Balthazar Moncornet, Gilles
Légaré, and Jean Vauquer. Vauquer worked at Blois between 1670 and 1700,
and like many other engravers of jewellers' designs, was a jeweller and
enamel painter by profession. He was a pupil of Morlière of Orleans, who
also worked at Blois. His fine plates of flowers and ornamental foliage,
engraved after his own designs and entitled _Livre de fleurs propres
pour orfévres et graveurs_, were published in 1680.[175] Vauquer was an
enamel painter of pre-eminent ability, and one of the greatest
exponents of the day of the art of representing natural flowers.
[175] Reproduced by Quaritch in 1888.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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