Basse-taille
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''Basse-taille'' (bahss-tah-ee) is an
enamelling Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by melting, fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between . The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitrification, vitreous coating. The wo ...
technique in which the artist creates a low-relief pattern in metal, usually
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
or
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
, by
engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...
or chasing. The entire pattern is created in such a way that its highest point is lower than the surrounding metal. A
translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...
enamel is then applied to the metal, allowing light to reflect from the relief and creating an artistic effect. It was used in the late Middle Ages, and then again in the 17th century.


Medieval examples

The technique had been known to the Ancient Romans, but was lost at the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century. Translucent enamel is more fragile than opaque enamel, and medieval survivals in good condition are very rare. Medieval examples begin in Italy in the 13th century, with the earliest dated work being a chalice by the Sienese goldsmith
Guccio di Mannaia Guccio di Mannaia (Malnaia; Malnaggia; Manaie; Mannaie) was an Italian goldsmith from Siena, Italy active from 1288 to 1322. He is best known for a 13th-century decorated gold-plated chalice which contains the first documented use of translucent en ...
, made for
Pope Nicholas IV Pope Nicholas IV ( la, Nicolaus IV; 30 September 1227 – 4 April 1292), born Girolamo Masci, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1288 to his death on 4 April 1292. He was the first Franciscan to be ele ...
about 1290, which is part of the collection of the Treasure Museum of the basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. The technique then spread to other centres for high-quality courtly work, at a time when the
champlevé Champlevé is an enamelling technique in the decorative arts, or an object made by that process, in which troughs or cells are carved, etched, die struck, or Casting (metalworking), cast into the surface of a metal object, and filled with vitre ...
enamels associated above all with
Limoges Limoges (, , ; oc, Lemòtges, locally ) is a city and Communes of France, commune, and the prefecture of the Haute-Vienne Departments of France, department in west-central France. It was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region ...
had become almost mass-produced and relatively cheap. It is generally agreed that the late 14th century
Royal Gold Cup The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century, and later belonged to several English monarchs before spending ...
, now in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, is the outstanding surviving example of ''basse taille'' enamel. It is one of only four known survivals done on gold, including both secular or religious pieces; another is the small Salting
Reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including ''wikt:phylactery, phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it i ...
, also in the British Museum. The "King John Cup" in
King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...
, of ca. 1340, silver-gilt with transparent enamel, is the best example of ''basse-taille'' work probably made in England; the metalwork expert Herbert Maryon describes this and the Royal Gold Cup as the "two examples of outstanding merit, unsurpassed in any collection". However it is unclear if most of the enamel at King's Lynn is original. The technique was rediscovered in the 17th century, but was not much practiced thereafter. In a variant of the technique, translucent enamel was applied over a
guilloché Guilloché (; or guilloche) is a decorative technique in which a very precise, intricate and repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into an underlying material via engine turning, which uses a machine of the same name, also called a ros ...
machine-turned metal backing by
Peter Carl Fabergé Peter Carl Fabergé, also known as Karl Gustavovich Fabergé (russian: Карл Гу́ставович Фаберже́, ''Karl Gustavovich Faberzhe''; 30 May 1846 – 24 September 1920), was a Russian jewellery, jeweller best known for the fam ...
on the Faberge eggs and other pieces from the 1880s until the Russian Revolution, and this technique is still used, usually in a single colour.


17th century

The revived technique was used in the 17th century for the covers and faces of
pocket watch A pocket watch (or pocketwatch) is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a watch, wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wr ...
es, gold boxes and similar items, but mostly with opaque enamel, achieving a rather different effect from medieval examples using translucent enamel. The French watchmaker
Josias Jolly Josiah ( or ) or Yoshiyahu; la, Iosias was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Josiah is credited by most biblical s ...
made frequent use of it.


Technique

The process for creating ''basse-taille'' enamel began by marking the outline of the design and the main internal outlines on the gold with a tool called a "tracer". Then the interior area was worked, either with chasing tools, hammering and punching rather than cutting, or with
chisel A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...
s, to form a shallow recess to hold the enamel. The more important parts of the design were modelled by varying the depth of the surface to produce different intensities of colour when the translucent enamel was added; for example in the Royal Gold Cup the gold under folds of drapery often rises near the surface to create a paler highlight. In the example illustrated with Luke's ox the lowest lobe shows tufts of grass formed by cutting deeper into the background. In many of the recessed areas further decoration was added by either engraving or punching which would show through the translucent enamel, or to facet the background so the reflections change as the viewing angle changes slightly. Most background areas to the enamelled scenes were decorated in the same way. Finally the surfaces were cleaned up, made good and polished, perhaps including scraping off any bumps showing through on the reverse of the metal.Lightbown. Maryon (1951) - see further reading - and his colleagues established the method for making the recesses; Read and Dalton had thought they were cut out with
chisel A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...
s. For other objects with translucent enamels, see Campbell, 458-461.
The enamel lies flush with the gold surfaces; it was a preparation of finely ground glass paste applied with great care to the prepared recessed areas, and then fired. When different colours of enamel meet each other with a neat boundary, this was achieved by firing one colour with a retaining border of
gum tragacanth Tragacanth is a natural gum obtained from the dried sap of several species of Middle Eastern legumes of the genus ''Astragalus'', including '' A. adscendens'', '' A. gummifer'', '' A. brachycalyx'', and '' A. tragacantha''. Some of these species ...
before adding the next. The difficulty was often increased by the application of tints of a different colour to a base shade of enamel before firing, so that the added colour blends gradually into the background colour around the edges of the tinted area. This is especially used on "flux", or colourless enamel, as in the ground areas, rocks and trees. In the Royal Gold Cup, flux was also used for flesh areas as on a gold background it darkens slightly when hard to a suitable colour for skin. The ''rouge clair'' or "ruby glass" red, used so effectively here, was made by adding tiny particles of
copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
, silver and gold to the glass; here scientific tests have shown that copper was used. After firing the enamel was polished flush with the surrounding metal, which was presumably decorated last.


Notes


References

*Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (eds), ''Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400'', Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1987; most of the best English examples up to 1400 are catalogue numbers 541, 543, 580-587, 608-610
"British Museum Investigation"
''Investigation of the 'rouge clair' glass on the Royal Gold Cup'' webpage, accessed June 16, 2010 *Campbell, Marian, in Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (eds), ''Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200-1400'', Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1987 *"Maryon (1951)": Maryon, Herbert, ''New Light on the Royal Gold Cup'', ''The British Museum Quarterly'', Vol. 16, No. 2, April 1951
JSTOR
*"Maryon (1971)": Maryon, Herbert
''Metalwork and enamelling: a practical treatise on gold and silversmiths' work and their allied crafts''
Courier Dover Publications, 1971, , *Osborne, Harold (ed), ''The Oxford Companion to the Decorative Arts'', 1975, OUP, {{DEFAULTSORT:Basse-Taille Decorative arts Jewellery making Artistic techniques Vitreous enamel