Pictorial Art in Glass.
Stained-glass windows are associated with ecclesiastical edifices. Old English houses, however, not infrequently contain armorial panels, coats of arms in leaden frames, and curious little pictures in colours which can be hung against modern windows where the light will throw up the rich colouring of the old-time painters. Little patches of colour, too, were often introduced in otherwise plain diamond-shaped lattice panes.
There are glass pictures, so-called, oftentimes consisting of coloured prints pasted on one side of the glass, a softened effect being produced by the glass through which they were seen; but they must be distinguished from the more costly paintings on glass sometimes met with.
In many an old house the glass shade with its contents so inartistic, although removed from its place of honour on the parlour table, found a niche where it is preserved. Under such shades were preserved wool-work baskets filled with artificial flowers, among which were often small porcelain figures, butterflies and birds. Sometimes a Parian vase has been filled with wax flowers, the making of which was a favourite pastime half a century ago. The dried plant called "honesty" was frequently covered with a glass shade. Glass ships were exceedingly popular in seaport towns, and little miniature replicas of household furniture in glass are met with; indeed, there seems to have been no limit to the fancies and freaks of the glass blower, who has at different periods provided the present-day collector with curious, if very breakable, curios.
Enamels on Metal.
The art of enamelling on metal has been practised from very early times. In its earlier forms it was chiefly an art applied to jewellery and the ornamentation of ecclesiastical metal work. In time, however, it was applied as a convenient method of decorating utilitarian household articles such as fire-dogs and candlesticks. Those who frequent the more important museums often associate enamels with the costly and rare enamels of Limoges, and the choice bits of Italian enamels seen in the cases of metals where the most valuable curios are gathered together. Such vessels as those marvellous effects produced by the enamellers of Limoges are indeed rarely found among household curios; it is well, however, to note that the processes by which those effects were produced changed as time went on. The earlier translucent enamel of the Italian artists was laid over an incised metal ground, the design previously prepared showing through. In the later Limoges enamels the surface with which the copper base was overlaid was painted, very much in the same way as the miniature painters on enamels operated in after-years.
The process of covering metal with enamels made of a species of glass is very ancient, but the basis of all enamels is the application of fusible colourless silicate or glass in pattern or design, mixed with metallic oxides, the prepared surface being afterwards fired until the enamel adheres firmly to the copper or other metal. The processes varied, but the firing or fusing was the same throughout. The name "enamel" is traceable to the French word enail and the Italian smalto, both having the same root as the Anglo-Saxon word "smelt." The enamels of China and Japan so extensively imported into this country of late years are chiefly made by filling cloisons or cells formed of fine metal wires or plates with coloured enamels and then firing them. As the collector advances in his appreciation of the old craftsmen, he soon recognizes the difference between the antiques sent over by Oriental merchants and the modern works made on present-day commercial lines, and not the work of men whose time was deemed of small account if they acquired notoriety for the beauty of their work.
The household enamels of English make consist chiefly of those beautiful little boxes, trinkets, and domestic objects made at Battersea and Bilston in the eighteenth century. The enamels used for the ground were tinted rose, blue, and other shades, and ornamented with painted pictures and mottoes. A very fine group of Battersea patch boxes is shown in Fig. [63].