designs for jewellery by gilles légaré and paul birckenhultz
Complete as was the change which was brought about owing to the prominence given to the precious stone, it must not be supposed that the enameller's art was by any means neglected. Though it cannot be compared with that in the best productions of the Renaissance, the enamel-work applied to seventeenth-century jewellery is, nevertheless, worthy of close attention.
Enamel executed by the champlevé method was much employed. The technical process known as champlevé was performed in two ways. By one method the surface of the gold was simply incised with designs, and the grooves thus made filled with enamel. By another method only thin lines of the metal were reserved to form the design, and the remainder of the field cut out to receive the enamel. This latter system resembles in appearance the well-known cloisonné; but the metal strips that form the partitions between the enamel, instead of being inserted, are a solid part of the metal base. Commonly employed on jewellery from the middle of the sixteenth century, it remained in general favour, together with the simpler form of champlevé, till about the third decade of the seventeenth century, when it gave place to enamel-work of an entirely different kind.
For jewellery intended to be carried out by this champlevé method, or on rare occasions to be covered with translucent enamels, we have at our service again a number of dated designs. These engravings, known as Schwarzornamente or niello ornaments, are in the nature of silhouettes. The patterns, reserved in white upon a black ground, are composed of curves of flat and broken strapwork. The designs are occasionally for complete jewels, but most of them take the form of very small motives intended as patterns for the shoulders of finger rings, or for the borders, frames, or other details of jewels. Some engraved plates are made up entirely of such motives; on other plates they appear as details, either within a complete design or upon the field outside it. Germany and the Netherlands furnish the earliest examples of these. Several dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century are by "monogrammists," who signed their engravings with their initials, and whose names are mostly unknown—such as the German master A. C. of the year 1598. Among recognised engravers in this style are the following:—Of the German school: Arnold Jörg (1586-1596), Corvinianus Saur (1590-1597), the rare Hans Hensel of Sagan (1599), Daniel Hailler (1604), Jonas Bentzen (1615), and Daniel Mignot (1590) and P. Symony (1621), both of whom placed these motives on the field of their plates. Of the Netherlandish school is the well-known Michel Le Blon, called Blondus, goldsmith at the Court of Queen Christina of Sweden, who was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1587 and died at Amsterdam in 1656. His designs in silhouette, the earliest of which, in the British Museum, is dated 1605,[174] were in great demand, and appear not only on knife-handles, but on oval and octagonal box-shaped pendants—presumably watch-cases. Also of the same school are: the rare master, Hans van Ghemert (1585), Hans de Bull (1590), the monogrammist P. R. K. (1609), and Guillaume de la Quewellerie of Amsterdam (1611-1635). In addition there is Giovanni Battista Costantini of Rome, who published his Ornementi per lavorare Giorje in 1622 and 1625.
PLATE XLI
patterns for jewellery and enamelled jewels from similar designs