Enamels of the Countries of the East.
China, India, and Persia have been famed from early times for their exquisite productions in enamels. Japan also has made, and continues to make, enamels of great beauty. The older or Cloisonné method is mostly in favour with the natives of the East, and very little Champlevé work is executed. Although enamelling is an old art in China, yet Chinese enamels are rare that have been executed before the fifteenth century. In the Ming dynasty, under the Emperor King-tai (1450-7), enamel working was in its highest state of excellence.
The designs on the enamelled vases are pretty much the same as on all their other works, such as textiles, embroideries, and porcelain. In fact, a Chinese enamelled vase is as a rule very similar in shape, colour, and decoration to a porcelain one of the same country, and sometimes the likeness is so great as to demand a close inspection to determine which is enamel and which porcelain.
The Chinese used as a rule light colours in their enamel grounds: light turquoise blue, light olive green, or a bright yellow ground; the latter colour was mostly used in the painted enamels of the Thsing dynasty, yellow being the national colour of this dynasty. The general type of the design is made up of such things as a very crooked tree or branch, decorated with large clusters of flowers and foliage, slightly conventional in drawing; sometimes with birds and butterflies, or with dragons; some vases have one large dragon occupying the greater part of the field.
The colouring is generally very bright, the ground light and brilliant; the flowers may be red, deep blue, pansy-violet, golden yellow, or white. The foliage is usually of a crude emerald green type. Borders of conventional cloud forms or other geometric forms surround the panels, or form belts to the fields of the ornamental compositions.
Religious vases, altar furniture, perfume-burners, candlesticks, lamps, screens, and table-tops are some of the articles in Chinese enamels made invariably in the Cloisonné manner.
The Chinese also make a species of enamel that has no metal foundation, which consists of a cloisonnage of network in which the enamel is skilfully fused between the divisions, and is of a semi-translucent character.
Japanese enamels are more modern than the Chinese, old pieces of Japanese being extremely rare. The enamels of Japan are darker in the ground colour than the Chinese, being generally of a dark olive green, or of a warm neutral grey tint. Some very large vases, braziers, and large dishes are made by the Japanese. These wonderful people are extremely clever in the use of the enamellers’ lamp and the blowpipe, for the purpose of fusing the enamel in sections, as the large pieces they made could not possibly be fired entire. The Chinese excel in the painting of enamels, but the Japanese do not seem to cultivate this art to any great extent.
Indian enamels are characterized by their extreme brilliance and splendour of colouring, in which qualities they excel the enamels of all other countries. The native enamellers work in the translucent, Cloisonné, and Champlevé processes, and the methods and secrets of their craft are kept in their families. Greens of the peacock and emerald hues, coral and ruby reds, torquoise and sapphire blues are the favourite Indian enamel colours.
Fig. 107.—Necklace; Punjaub. (B.)
The celebrated Jaipur enamels are of the Champlevé kind. In Cashmere and in the Punjaub jewellery is made of gemmed gold and enamels (Fig 107). The Queen and the Prince of Wales possess many articles that are masterpieces of Indian enamelling. The Haka stand lent by the Queen to the Indian Museum is a splendid specimen of translucent painted enamel in green and blue, of the Mongol period (Fig. 108).
Fig. 108.—Enamelled Haka Stand; Mongol Period. (B.)
A large plate of Jaipur enamel, said to be the largest ever made, was presented to the Prince of Wales. A unique and beautiful specimen of the same kind of enamel is the Kalamdan, or pen-and-ink stand in the shape of an Indian gondola (Fig. 109).
The stern is formed of a peacock’s head and body, the tail of which decorates in brilliant enamels the underneath part of the boat.
Fig. 109.—Enamelled Pen-and-Ink Stand; Jaipur. (B.)
The canopy of the ink receptacle has green, blue, coral, and ruby enamels laid on a gold foundation.
The vase, or Sarai (Fig. 110) in possession of Lady Wyatt is a fine example of Cashmere enamel, on which the shawl pattern may be seen.
Fig. 110.—Enamelled Sarai; Punjaub. (B.)
A kind of enamel is made at Pertabghar in Rajputana, which consists in covering a plate of burnished gold with a rich green enamel, and placing on the surface while it is hot thin plates of gold ornaments, which are fastened to the enamel by heat; afterwards these gold plates are engraved elaborately with incised lines, so as to bring out the design. Sometimes the enamel itself is engraved, and an easily fused gold amalgam is rubbed into the incised lines, and fused to form the decoration.
Persian enamels are applied mostly to the heads of “Kalians,” or tobacco water-pipes, jewellery, and coffee-cup holders. The foundations are gold or copper. A large tray enamelled on copper on both sides is in the Kensington Museum. It is decorated with flowers of various colours on a white ground, and has an Armenian inscription with the date A.D. 1776, and comes from Ispahan. In most Persian enamels the grounds are usually of a white or light tint, with brightly coloured flowers as decoration.
CHAPTER III.
IVORY CARVINGS.
In the former part of this work we have noticed the ivory carvings of the ancient world, and it is proposed in the following pages to give an outline of ivory carvings of the Middle Ages and of the comparatively modern periods.
One of the oldest and most important works in ivory carving of the sixth century is the celebrated Chair of St. Maximinian, now preserved in the metropolitan church of Ravenna. It is entirely overlaid with plates of ivory, and has five upright panels in the front and below the seat which are carved with figure subjects. The legs and back are overlaid with ivory plates, carved with animals, foliage, and figures, and on the rail in front of the seat is carved the Archbishop’s monogram. It is altogether a very fine and rich piece of Romanesque work.
Very important works in ivory were executed in the time of the Roman Empire, in the nature of “Consulare” diptychs and triptychs. These Consular diptychs were originally made of wood or ivory, and were hinged tablets that folded over each other, the outside surfaces being carved elaborately, with a portrait or figure of the Consul or chief magistrate of the province in the centre, the inside surfaces being used for writing purposes. These consulares were also called “pugillares” from being portable objects that could be carried conveniently in the hand or fist. They were usually made as presents to be given to important people of distant provinces, or to very intimate friends of the Consuls. After the adoption of the Christian religion by the Roman Empire it was the custom of the Consuls to send these consulares in the form of a diptych or triptych, as a present to the bishop of a church in his province, to show his patronage and goodwill, and they were usually placed on the altar of the church, in order that the congregation should see them and remember the giver in their prayers. This custom led to the making of the diptychs (two-leaved) and the triptychs (three-leaved), for the purpose of the altar decorations, and usually on the plain inner leaves were inscribed the names of the newly baptized (neophytes) Christians, benefactors to the church, dignitaries of the same, and Christian martyrs. The use of these led to the later magnificent painted and carved altars of the triptych order in Christian churches. During the persecution by the iconoclastic Emperors of the Eastern Empire a great number of these triptychs were made in wood and in ivory of Greek workmanship, carved or painted on the interior faces with representations of saints and sacred personages. These were used as portable altars, and were carried about the person of those who used to pray before them in secret. Many of them were also of a good size, and became later important objects that were placed above or near the “prie-dieus” in private rooms or chapels. The smaller pugillares, and larger ecclesiastical diptychs were used in later times to form the coverings of costly illuminated books, and it is owing to this use of them that so many have been preserved to our day.
Byzantine sculpture and ivory carvings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were invested with the same severe and solemn character that was the distinguishing feature of the ceiling and wall mosaics of the same period. The figures were long and attenuated, the draperies very stiff and angular and arranged in parallel folds, which, with the German phase of Christian art, developed later into a still more angular and rocky character. In France, on the other hand, in the thirteenth century there arose a splendid and original school of sculpture, entirely native, whose richest efforts culminated in such masterly achievements as the figure sculpture of the cathedrals of Rheims, Chartres, and Amiens.
Fig. 111.—Coronation of the Virgin; Ivory Carving relieved with Colours and Gold; Thirteenth-Century French. (Jacquemart.)
Small statuettes in ivory were made in great quantities in the Middle Ages, and as an example of the French school of ivory carving of this period there is an exceedingly fine representation of the “Coronation of the Virgin” (Fig. 111) in the Louvre. In this work the figure of Christ has the dress and lineaments of Philip III. (the Bold), the son of St. Louis, and that of the Virgin is personified as Mary, his Queen, daughter of Henry III. (the Debonnaire), Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. This example dates from about 1274, and is certainly one of the most perfectly finished works of French sculpture of that time.
Fig. 112.—Image Painter; Fifteenth Century.
Colour and rich decoration were seen very much on the sculpture of the Middle Ages, for we find traces of it in the mediæval tombs, effigies, and all kinds of statuary.
Some of the ancient diptychs had both ground and figures coloured and perhaps gilt. Coloured and gilded statues and reliefs were common in Germany and France, and are so to-day in those of the Roman and Greek Christian churches.
Fig. 113.—Leaf of a Roman Diptych. (S.K.M.)
The dresses of the figures are semé (sown) all over with fleurs-de-lis and very rich diapers in gold and silver, on rich red, blue, and white grounds. Statuary painting was a profession in the Middle Ages. The illustration (Fig. 112), from a French fifteenth-century manuscript, shows an image painter at work.
Returning to the ivory plaques or diptychs, the illustration at Fig. 113 is that of the most perfect and most beautiful specimen of antique ivory carving that we have any knowledge of. It is now in the Kensington Museum, and represents the figure of a young girl, or Bacchante, with a younger girl attending her. The figure has a well-designed arrangement of drapery hanging in graceful folds. She stands at an altar, and is in the act of making an offering. A vigorously carved oak-tree with acorns and foliage occupies the left top of the panel, and a border of a Greek character surrounds it. The corresponding half of this plaque is in the Cluny Museum in Paris. It was found at the bottom of a well at Montier-en-Der, and is much injured. The latter half shows the figure of a female standing at an altar, and holding in her hands inverted flaming torches. These famous plaques, which measure nearly 12 inches by 5, are supposed to have formed the doors of a large shrine or châsse that was brought from Rome in the days of Childeric. They are supposed to be Roman work of the sixth or seventh century, though some think the work is earlier: they are undoubtedly executed by a Greek artist. There are many specimens of consular diptychs in the museums of London, Liverpool, and the Continent. The earliest dates from about A.D. 250, and the latest about A.D. 540. The Roman Consuls continued for nearly one thousand years: the last Consul of Constantinople was Basilius (A.D. 541), and the last Consul of Rome was Paulinus (A.D. 536).
There is a large plaque of ivory in the British Museum which measures 16 inches by nearly 6 inches in width—the largest known—on which is carved the figure of an archangel holding in one hand a globe and in the other a long staff. He stands on the top of a flight of steps under a round arch supported by Corinthian pillars. Its date is uncertain, but is probably of the seventh century; it is grandly designed and of excellent workmanship (Fig. 114).
A work of the same or slightly earlier period is the beautiful ivory vase (Fig. 115), which has well proportioned horizontal divisions and well-designed ornamentation. The style of design suggests a copy from metal work.
Triptychs, as we have seen, were used above and behind the altar tables, and were at first portable, so that they could be carried away after the service was ended; but later they became the “retables,” fixed altars, or “reredoses,” and were carved or painted, or were partly executed in both ways.
Fig. 114.—Ivory Carving with Archangel. (B.M.)
Fig. 115.—Ivory Vase; Roman, Seventh Century. (B.M.)
Many objects of secular art, and articles that the wealthy could afford to use in every-day life, were made in ivory during the Middle Ages, such as book-covers, toilet-combs, mirror-cases, chessmen, horns, hilts of knives, swords, and daggers, caskets, small coffers, &c., in addition to the objects required for use in religious ceremonies, as pyxes, croziers, crucifixes, crosses, and taus, the latter being an early form of the pastoral staff. The pastoral staffs of ivory are not very common, and most examples known belong to the thirteenth century.
Fig. 116.—Pastoral Staff; German, Thirteenth Century. (S.K.M.)
The woodcut (Fig. 116) of the pastoral staff shows the subject of the Crucifixion on one side and the Virgin and Child with attendant angels on the other. It is German work of the thirteenth century, and is now in the Cathedral of Metz.
An older specimen of the pastoral staff, which Mr. Maskell thinks is English work, is carved in bone with interlacing scrolls, and has a grotesque and serpent forming the crook decorations (Fig. 117).
Fig. 117.—Pastoral Staff; Bone Caning, English; Twelfth Century.
In the fourteenth century ivory carvings were in great demand, judging from the great number of the various ivories of that date which have been preserved.
Belonging to this period are the beautiful ivory hunting horns called “oliphants” (from elephant) that were much used by kings and nobles in hunting, and were sometimes mounted in gold.
The ivory carvings known as pierced or “open-work” are usually of very fine and delicate workmanship. The illustration (Fig. 118) shows two compartments of a larger plaque in the Kensington Museum, the full size of the originals that have sacred figures under Gothic canopies of fourteenth-century work. It is not known exactly to what country they belong, as ivory carvings as a rule are undated and unsigned, but the woodcut (Fig. 119) represents an undoubted piece of English work. It is one leaf of a diptych made for Grandison, Bishop of Exeter.
Fig. 118.—Ivory Carving; Fourteenth Century Pierced Work. (S.K.M.)
Few names of artists, as ivory carvers, have come down to us from the Middle Ages. One named Jean Lebraellier was the carver to Charles V. of France; Jehan Nicolle is another who has signed his name on an ivory pax in the British Museum. Henry des Grès was a “pignier” or carver of combs (1391). Héliot has dated work of 1392. Henry de Senlis, “tabletier,” plaque carver of 1454, and Philip Daniel, “pignier” and “tabletier” (1484), in Paris.
Fig. 119.—Ivory Diptych; English Work; Fourteenth Century. (S.K.M.)
The top of a Moorish casket from Spain, with Saracenic engraved ornament of the eleventh century, is shown at Fig. 120, and a beautiful casket from Italy, carved and engraved in bone, is illustrated at Fig. 121. This is fourteenth-century work. Caskets and coffers made of slabs of bone, carved and inlaid with figure subjects and armorial bearings, were made extensively in Italy at this period, and used as marriage coffers.
Fig. 120.—Lid of Ivory Cabinet; Spanish; Eleventh Century. (S.K.M.)
Combs and mirror cases were naturally objects that received much attention at the hands of the carver in ivory. A beautiful comb in the British Museum (Fig. 122) belongs to the eleventh century, the central scroll-work of which is very rich and ornate.
Fig. 121.—Coffer in Bone Carving and Engraved Work; Italian; Fourteenth Century. (S.K.M.)
Ceremonial combs, with finely carved ornamentation, have been found in tombs of bishops, and many are preserved in churches that date from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries. The mirror case, Fig. 123, is a beautiful example of fourteenth-century work. It has the carved subject of the “Siege of the Castle of Love”—a favourite subject for mirror case decoration—and four lions forming the corners to the circular ring.
Fig. 122.—Ivory Comb; Eleventh Century.
In reference to the ivory carver Héliot, mentioned above, Jacquemart quotes—when speaking of his work, the oratory of carved ivory tablets in the Cluny Museum that belonged to the Duchess of Burgundy—"Accounts of Amiot Arnant from 1392 to 1393. Paid 500 livres to Berthelot Héliot, ‘varlet de chambre’ of the duke (Philip the Bold), for two large ivory tablets with images, one of which is the ‘Passion of Our Lord,’ and the other the ‘Life of Monsieur Saint Jean-Baptiste,’ which he has sold for the Carthusians."
Fig. 123.—Ivory Mirror Case. (S.K.M.)
Many celebrated artists have doubtless worked in ivory, but there is nothing to prove this except the supposed hand-work of the artists. Michelangelo is credited with working in ivory; Cellini, Donatello, Agostino, Carracci, and other famous names in Italian art have been mentioned as ivory carvers; and in the seventeenth century a celebrated ivory carver named Copé, but better known as Fiamingo, who was Flemish by birth. He made many basins, ewers, tankards, and carved figures of children in bas-relief. Fiamingo worked and lived in Rome at the end of the sixteenth and during the first ten years of the seventeenth centuries. He died in 1610. His work, like that of many other artists of this period, was greatly influenced by the style of Rubens, and a strongly marked realism in the manner of treating allegorical subjects was the prevailing taste in painting and carving. Very fine tankards in ivory, and basins, were carved by Fiamingo with bacchanalian scenes in a realistic manner. The tankard from the Jones Collection (Fig. 124) is believed to be the work of Fiamingo. It is a Flemish ivory mounted in silver-gilt work of good design. The body of the tankard is spiritedly carved with the figures of a nymph and satyr dancing, Silenus, and some children carrying grapes.
Another Flemish artist in ivory was Francis von Bossuit, who spent a great part of his life in Rome, and whose figure carvings are of great value. Alessandro Algardi was an Italian artist of the seventeenth century, who carved the ivory bas-relief of St. Leo going out to meet Attila, now in St. Peter’s at Rome, and also a very fine bust of Cosimo II. de’ Medici. One of the best ivory carvers that ever lived was François Duquesnoy, known better as François Flamand (1594-1644); he was a native of Brussels, and went to Rome when a young man for the purpose of study. He supported himself in his wanderjahr period by carving little figures in ivory and wood. In the Cluny Museum and in the Louvre some groups, and bas-reliefs of females and children, may be seen, executed by Flamand, that are full of roundness and life, boldly conceived and extremely graceful.
Fig. 124.—Ivory Tankard, Silver-gilt Mounted; Flemish; Seventeenth Century. (S.K.M.)
We have noticed how plentiful the ivory carvings were of the fourteenth century period; but at the end of that century ivory sculpture fell in abeyance, which lasted during almost the whole of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This was due to the very great impulse given to wood carving by the French, and even more so by the German wood sculptors. Large wooden altar-pieces, or “retables,” came into fashion, and also minute wooden portraits and statuettes, which for a long period superseded ivory carvings; and in Germany a good deal of carving was executed in “Speckstein” or Soapstone, a kind of drab-coloured lithographic stone that was not difficult to work. Albert Dürer and Lucas Cranach carved some very fine works in Speckstein. At the beginning of the seventeenth century ivory carving became again in great request.
The Germans carried the arts of ivory and miniature wood carving, as they did the larger style of wood carving, to great perfection; in fact to an astonishing degree of dexterity, that would compare with Chinese or Japanese carving, but lacking in the restrained artistic power of the latter nation’s productions. All kinds of astonishing creations are preserved in the museums of subjects such as little ivory carvings of skeletons in company with groups of female figures, miniature hunchbacks, and beggars with diamonds for buttons on their dresses. Leo Pronner, of Nuremberg, carved on a cherry-stone a hundred heads, that required the aid of a magnifying glass to see the expressions, and later Simon Troger, of the same city, produced many marvels in ivory figures with brown wood dresses and other accessories in wood.
Many good ivories have been the work of Spanish carvers, and as a rule they are tinted or coloured.
Nearly all the carvings in ivory that we have noticed have been statuettes, reliefs, or objects in which the human figure predominates.
As a matter of fact there are very few ivories of any artistic value in which the human figure is not the most important part of the composition, purely ornamental work being very rare. Even in Saracenic work, where the figure and animal representations are not found, the amount of carved ivory work is limited, and the specimens are very scarce.
Fig. 125.—Carved Ivory Panels of a Pulpit Door; Saracenic. (S.K.M.)
In an ancient Coptic church in Cairo there is a massive partition or screen of ebony, in which is a central door and two side panels. This screen has a rich display of inlaid ivory carved with arabesques, and has ivory crosses in high relief. The screen is believed by Mr. Butler—the author of “The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt”—to be a work of the tenth century, and also to be the model on which the ivory carving of the mosques was founded.
The ivory carvings in Saracenic work are usually found as carved or chased panels, with arabesque designs, and surrounded with geometric linear framing (Fig. 125).
The best of this type of work was executed in the fourteenth century. Objects made of ivory alone are very rare in Saracenic art. The illustration given of an ivory ink-horn is unique in this material, but ink-horns of the same shape are common that have been made in copper and brass.
Figure and animal carvings of Saracenic or Moorish design have been made in Spain, and in some other countries under the rule of the Saracens, but are not found in the Egyptian Saracenic.
China has always been prolific in the production of ivory carvings. There are numerous statuettes of Confucius, Cheoü-lao, the god of old age, of the Buddhist female divinity Kouan-in, and of other divinities. Necklaces, pierced plaques for waist-belt decoration, and the su-chus or rosaries, all are carved with a certain archaic quality and quaintness, but of a minute and unsurpassed dexterity of workmanship.
The Chinese ivory fans of pierced work are beautiful and as delicate as lace-work. Examples of these are very common.
Fig. 126.—Ivory Ink-Horn; Saracenic. (S.K.M.)
The pen-cases called pitongs are beautiful objects, carved with dragons, flowers, and quaint figures in toy-like houses and gardens.
The “puzzle balls” are amongst the most wonderful of the Chinese carvings in ivory, where quite a number of loose balls of lessening sizes are contained within each other, and are all carved out of a solid ball of ivory. The outer surfaces of each ball are also carved with elaborate ornamentation. The method of cutting out these balls consists in boring a number of holes at regulated distances on the surface to a measured depth of the thickness of each outer shell, and then to cut around the circumference of each hole with a steel tool made with a bent end to suit the concentric curve of the sphere, and turned until each shell is freed from its next smaller ball. The Chinese puzzle balls are not very perfect examples of accurate turning, as the ornamentation conceals the rough workmanship in a great degree, but still they are marvels of skill and patience.
The Japanese carvings in ivory are better in an artistic sense than the Chinese, and exhibit the same surprising beauty of finish and minuteness of detail. All kinds of little cases for pens, jewels, powders and perfumes; little divinities, small caskets and cabinets put together with plaques of slabs of carved ivory, gilt and coloured with lacquers, and also encrusted with lapis-lazuli, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones. There is also the most wonderful little ivory figure and groups of animal carvings called netsukes. These in many instances are works of the highest order. Many of them are meant as embodied jokes, puns, or satires. Some consist of groups of real or sham cripples, beggars with monkeys on their backs, wrestlers, boxers, all kinds of domestic scenes, warriors on foot and on horseback; other subjects full of dignity and grace, and animal groups carved as no other people in the world can do. These netsukes are used not only as ornaments that are treasured for their own sakes, but also as dress-fasteners and as articles of personal adornment by the better classes in Japan.
Many other uses for ivory carvings are found by the Japanese, such as handles of swords and daggers, and some of their beautiful lacquered panels have encrusted eagles and other birds beautifully carved, and perched on the branches of trees, the latter being made from mother-of-pearl, and sometimes the flowers, foliage, and fruit of tinted ivory minutely chased.
India is famed for its extremely elaborate ivory carvings. The elaborated richness of Oriental ornament is seen in the ivory carvings of India more than in almost any other material except the goldsmiths’ work; but this may be more excused in such precious materials as ivory, gold, or hand-made laces, where it is quite legitimate to give to the ornament that necessary character of elaborate detail which always adds to the preciousness of the material.
Sometimes the carved ivory cabinets from India have Biblical subjects in the panels, which proves them to be works made to the order of the European missionaries, by native artists.
The ivory jewel casket with gold mountings (Fig. 127) is thoroughly Hindu in design and execution. Deified females with outstretched arms form a natural palanquin for the seated figure of an Indian divinity; other figures act as palanquin bearers, and the intervening spaces are richly filled with characteristic foliage and fruit.
Fig. 127.—Ivory Casket with Gold Clasp and Hinge; Indian. (Jacquemart.)
Ivory carving is so extensively carried on throughout India that it would be difficult to say in what part of the country it was not done. In some districts ivory carving in certain articles is done to the exclusion of others. Bison horn is carved at Ratnagiri.
Tortoiseshell is plentifully used for carving in Bombay. The Hindoos, like the Chinese, carve fans in a wonderfully delicate manner. Ivory bracelets, little elephants with all their trappings, tigers, oxen, gondolas, fully-rigged ships, hunting scenes, gods and goddesses, &c., are all made in ivory throughout India.