The last enamellers that I would mention are the Essexes, William and William B. The former was born in 1784, and died at Brighton, in 1869. In his long life he exhibited a large number of works at the Royal Academy, mostly portraits, H.M. the late Queen Victoria giving him much employment, and appointing him her enamel painter in 1839. Although most of his works exhibited at the Academy from 1818 until within five years of his death were portraits, or copies of paintings by the old masters, animal painting was really his forte, as may be seen by an examination of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
His son, W. B. Essex, died in Birmingham, in 1852, at the early age of twenty-nine, having contributed to the Academy from 1845 to 1851 some ten or twelve portraits.
In concluding these remarks upon enamel painting, one cannot help feeling a certain regret that the art, as applied to portraiture, I mean, should have fallen into such desuetude in these days. When one considers the beautiful effects which have been produced in it by the hands of masters, and especially the valuable quality of permanence which such works possess (for an enamel by Petitot is as brilliant to-day as it was when it was fired), one must wish that artists would devote themselves to so satisfactory a record of contemporary portraiture. Miniature painting upon ivory, charming as it is in its delicate effects, is, as we all know, subject to the great defect of being fleeting in its nature, when exposed to light. Not only has the charm and beauty of many a miniature by Cosway vanished utterly, but a green and ghastly caricature is left in its place, a travesty and a libel upon the original.
The amount of time and patience requisite to produce an enamel is, no doubt, the secret of the neglect into which it has fallen in these days. The tendency to haste and to hurry, with its concomitant, cheapness of production, is, we are told, ruining the art of such conservative craftsmen as those of China, of Japan, and of India; and if these Western tendencies have made their influence felt in the Far East, it is not to be wondered at that in England of to-day a portrait in enamels is a thing which demands too much labour and time to be in the vogue. True it is that it was never extensively practised here; but now it may be said, as far as regards portraiture, to be practically extinct.