“Towards the end of the fourteenth century,” says M. Labarte, “the taste for gold and silver articles having led to the disuse of plate of enamelled copper, the Limousine enamellers endeavoured to discover a new mode of applying enamel to the reproduction of graphic subjects. Their researches led them to dispense with the chaser for delineating the outlines of designs; the metal was entirely concealed under the enamel, which, spread by the brush, formed altogether both the drawing and the colouring. The first attempts at this novel painting on copper were necessarily very imperfect; but the processes gradually improved, until at length, in 1540, they attained perfection. Prior to that period, the enamels of Limoges were almost exclusively devoted to the reproduction of sacred subjects, of which the German school furnished the designs. But the arrival of Italian artists at the court of Francis I., and the publication of engravings of the works of Raphael and other great masters of Italy, gave a new direction to the school of Limoges, which adopted the style of that of Italy. Il Rosso and Primaticcio painted cartoons for the Limousine enamellers; and then
DRAGEOIR, OR TABLE ORNAMENT
Of Enamelled and Gilt Copper. German, latter part of Sixteenth Century.
they who had previously worked only on plates intended to be set in diptychs, on caskets, created a new species of goldsmith’s art. Basins, ewers, cups, salt-cellars, vases, and utensils of all sorts, manufactured with thin sheet-copper in the most elegant forms were decorated with their rich and brilliant paintings.”
In the highest rank of artists who have rendered this attractive work illustrious we must place Léonard (Limousin), painter to Francis I., who was the first director of the royal manufacture of enamels founded by that king at Limoges. Then followed Pierre Raymond ([Figs. 107 to 110]), whose works date from 1534 to 1578, the Penicauds, Courteys, Martial Raymond, Mercier, and Jean Limousin, enameller to Anne of Austria.
