SHIELD IN GILDED GESSO, NO. 3—1865 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).
We might be able to discover examples of gesso decoration in which stamped work or moulded work was used for repeating parts, and freehand work for other parts. In the Museum examples the majority seem to have been worked directly with a free hand. There is a fine example of how
gesso lends itself to a bold heraldic treatment in the Museum collection (No. 3—1865), a tournament shield on which a griffin, sable, is emblazoned on a field, or. The sable griffin in bold relief is not only a fine heraldic beast, but is decoratively spaced and relieved upon the gold field, the richness of which is greatly enhanced by the fine raised diaper pattern worked all over it in effective ornamental contrast to the bolder relief and treatment of the charge. It is possible stamps may have been used for the diaper of the field. The work belongs to the second half of the fifteenth century and is from the Palazzo Guadagni, Florence.
FRONT OF CASSONE IN GILDED GESSO, NO. 727—1884 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM)
One of the charms of gesso work in ornamental effect is the softened, floated, or half melted look given to the forms which take the lustre of gilding so agreeably. This character no doubt is given by the use of the brush in floating or dropping on the forms of the ornament. In No. 727—1884 of the Museum collection a particularly rich and dignified ornamental effect is produced by the contrasting allied elements of the figure reliefs in the large lozenge-shaped enclosures, with the rich gilded formal diaper of the heraldic sphinx, or human-headed lion, which, in close repetition, forms the diaper on the main field of the decoration. The raised work in this example has the softened molten or beaten character above spoken of. The marriage coffer (No. 718—1884) is an instance of purely ornamental treatment in raised
and gilded gesso on wood, consisting mainly of foliated scroll forms characteristic of the early Italian Renascence work, and here again the raised patterns have the soft rich look, as if the ornament had been squeezed or floated upon the surface of the wood, somewhat in the way in which confectioners squeeze sugar ornaments upon cakes. Sugar, by the way was an occasional ingredient in the preparation of gesso, as Cennino mentions.
