CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE ART OF ENAMELLING.

Now let us have a talk about the beautiful art of enamelling, and therewith consider those excellent craftsmen who wrought best therein; and with the knowledge of their lovely creations before us see what is beautiful and what is difficult in this art, and get to understand the difference between what is really good and what is indifferent. As I said in the first chapter of my book, this art was well practised in Florence, and I think too that in all those countries where they used it, and pre-eminently the French and the Flemings, and certainly those who practised it in the proper manner, got it originally from us Florentines. And because they knew how difficult the real way was, & that they would never be able to get to it, they set about devising another way that was less difficult. In this they made such progress, that they soon got according to popular opinion the name of good enamellers. It is certainly true that if a man only works at a thing long enough, all his practising makes his hand very sure in his art: & that was the way with the folk who lived beyond the Alps.

As for the right and proper way about which I intend to talk, it is done in this wise. First you make a plate either of gold or silver & of the size and shape that your work is to be. Then you prepare a composition of ‘pece greca,’[24]and brick ground very fine, and a little wax; according to the season; as for the latter you must add rather more in cold than in hot weather. This composition you put upon a board great or small in accordance with the size of your work, & on this you put your plate when you have heated it. Then you draw an outline with your compasses in depth rather less than a knife back, and, this done, ground your plate anywhere within this outline and with the aid of a four-cornered chisel to the depth which the enamel is to be, and this you must do very carefully. After this you can grave in intaglio on your plate anything that your heart delights in, figure, animals, legend with many figures, or anything else you like to cut with your graver and your chisels, and with all the cleanness that you possibly can. A bas-relief has to be made about the depth of two ordinary sheets of paper, and this bas-relief has to be sharply cut with finely-pointed steel tools, especially in the outlines, and if your figures are clothed with drapery, know that these folds, if sharply drawn and well projecting, will well express the drapery. It is all a questionof how deeply your work is engraved, and the little folds & flowerets that you figure on the larger folds may go to represent damask. The more care you put into this part of your work, the less liable your enamel will be to crack & peel off hereafter, and the more carefully you execute the intaglio the more beautiful your work will be in the end. But don’t imagine that by touching up the surface of your work with punches and hammer, it will gain anything in the relief, for the enamels will either not stick at all, or the surface that you are enamelling will still appear rough. And just as when a man cuts an intaglio he often rubs it with a little charcoal, such as willow or walnut wood, which he rubs on with a little saliva or water, the same you may do here when you cut your intaglio in order to see it stand out better, because the shine made by the metal tools on the plate will make it difficult for you to see your work. But, as owing to this the work gets a bit untidy and greasy, it is necessary, when you have finished it, to boil it out in a concoction of ashes[25]such as was described above for niello work.

Now let us say you want to begin enamelling your work, and that it is in gold. I propose telling you first of how to enamel on gold, and then how to do it on silver. For both gold and silver the same cleanness is necessary, and in either case the same method, but there is a little difference in applying the enamel and also in the actual enamels applied, for the red enamel cannot be put on silver because the silver does not take it. The reasons of this I would explain, were it not too long a business, so I’ll say nothing about it, especially as to do so would take us beyond the scope of our inquiry. Furthermore I have no intention of talking about how enamels are made, because that in itself is a great art, also practised by the ancients, & discovered by wise men, but as far as we are aware the ancients did not know of the transparent red enamel, which it is said, was discovered by an alchemist who was a goldsmith as well. But all I need tell of it is that this alchemist, while engaged in the search of how to make gold, had mixed together a certain composition, and when his work was done, there appeared among the stuff in the metal rest of his crucible a sediment of the loveliest red glass, just as we see it to this day. After much time and trouble, & by many mixings of it with other enamels the goldsmith finally discovered the process of making it. This enamel is far the most beautiful of all, and is termed in the goldsmiths’ art ‘smalto roggio,’ red enamel, or in French ‘rogia chlero’ (rouge claire) that is to say, and which means in other words, red and clear or transparent. A further sort of red enamel we have also, which is not transparent and has not the splendid colour, and this is used on silver becausethat metal will not take the other. And though I have not had much practical experience of it, I have tried it often enough to be able to talk about it. As for the other, it lends itself more aptly to gold by reason of its being produced from the minerals and compositions that have been used in the search how to make gold. Now let us return to the process of enamelling.

The method of enamelling is much the same as painting, for you can have as many colours as come within human ken. And just as in painting so in enamelling you have them all ranged in order and all well ground to begin with. We have a proverb in the craft which says: ‘Smalto sottilé e niello grosse.’ ‘Enamel should be fine, niello should be coarse,’ and that’s just what it is. You put your enamel in a little round mortar of well-hardened steel, and about the size of your palm, & then you pound it up with very clean water and with a little steel pestle specially made for the purpose of the necessary size. Some, to be sure, have pounded their enamels on porphyry or serpentine stone, which are very hard, & moreover have done this dry, but I now think that the steel mortar is much better because you can pound it so much cleaner. The reasons of this we may consider later, but because we want here to be as brief as possible & to avoid any unnecessary difficulties and useless confusion, all we need know is that the particular mortars in question are made in Milan. Many excellent men of this craft came from Milan and its adjacent territory, and I knew one of the best of them. His nick-name was Master Caradosso,[26]and he never wanted to be called by any other, and this nick-name was given him once by a Spaniard who was in a great rage because he was kept waiting by the Master for a piece of work which he had promised to get finished by a particular day. When the Spaniard saw that he could not have it in time, he got so fearfully angry that he looked as if he would like to do him an injury, at which Caradosso to appease his wrath, began excusing himself as best he could, and in such a plaintive tone of voice, and such an uncouth Milanese lingo, that the irate nobleman burst out laughing, and looking him straight in the face, cried out in his high & mighty manner: ‘Hai cara d’osso,’ that is to say, ‘You bum face.’ The sound of this appellation pleased Caradosso so much that he never would answer to any other. When later on one fine day he found out what it really meant, he would gladly have got rid of it, but he couldn’t, it was too late. I knew him as an old man of 80 in Rome, where he was never called by any other name than Caradosso. He was a splendid goldsmith, especially at enamelling, and I shall have more to say of him later on.

Now let us proceed with the beautiful art of enamelling. As I said above the best way of pounding the enamels is in a little steel mortar with water. I found out from personal experience that the best plan as soon as the enamels are ground is to pour off the water in which you grind them and put the powder in a little glass, pouring upon it just so much aqua fortis as may suffice to cover it; & so let it stand for about one-eighth of an hour. This done, take out your enamel and wash it well in a glass bottle with very clear, clean water until no residue of impurity be left. You must know that the object of the aqua fortis is to clean it of any fatty, just as fresh water is to clean it of any earthy impurities. When your enamels are all well washed in this way, you should put each in its little jar of glass ware or majolica, but take great care that your water is so contained that it does not dry up, because if you put fresh water to them your enamels will spoil at once. Now pay great attention to what I’m next going to tell you. If you want your enamels to come out properly you must take a nice clean piece of paper, and chew well between your teeth, that’s to say if you’ve got any,—I couldn’t do it because I’ve none left,—so should have to soften it and beat it up with a little hammer of iron or wood, whichever might be best; this done you must wash out your paper putty, and squeeze it till there is no water left in it, because you will have to use it as a sponge and apply it from time to time upon your enamels. The more your colours dry up during the process the better they will look afterwards. Then, too, I mustn’t forget to tell you another important thing which will also affect the good or bad enamelling of your work, and this necessitates your trying a piece of experimental work first.

To this end you take a plate of gold or silver, whichever material you elect to cut your intaglio upon, and on this experimental piece,—let us suppose it is gold,—put all the different colours with which you intend to work, having made as many little hollows with your graver as there are enamels. Thus you take a little bit of each, and the only object of this is to make the necessary preliminary trial, for by this trial you find out which run easy and which run hard, because it is very necessary that they should all run alike; for if some run too slowly and others too fast they would spoil each other, and you would make a mess of your work. All those preliminaries done, you may set to work at your enamelling; lay the nice clean colours over your engraved bas-relief just as if you were painting, always keeping your colours well covered up, and take no more out of one bottle than you can conveniently use at a time. It is usual, too, to fashion an instrument called a ‘palettiere’ (palette holder), this is made out of thin copper plate, & in imitation of fingers, it should not be bigger than your fingers, and there should be five or six of them.Then you take a lump of lead in the shape of a pear, with an iron stem to it, which would correspond to the stalk of the pear, and then you put all your bits of copper which you have hollowed out somewhat, one over the other on your pear stem. And this little finger-shaped palette you stand beside your work, and you put your enamels upon it, one by one, using due care. How careful you have to be with this cannot be told in words alone—you’ll have to learn that by experience!

As I said above, enamelling is similar to painting; though the mediums in the two sorts of painting in colours are oil & water, while that of painting in enamels is by dissolving them with heat. To begin with then, take your enamels with a little copper palette knife, & spread them out little by little very carefully over your bas-relief, putting on any colour you like, be it flesh colour, red, peacock blue, tawny, azure, grey or capucin colour, for that is what one of the colours is called. I don’t mention yellow, white & turquoise blue, because those colours are not suitable to gold. But one colour I forgot, and that was ‘Aqua Marina,’ a most beautiful colour, which may be used for gold as well as for silver. Then when you have all your enamels of all colours placed in the best of orders, you have to be careful in the first coat, as it is called, to apply them very thin and neatly, and just as if you were painting in miniature you put each in its place, exactly where it is to be. This done, have your furnace in order, & well heated with charcoal. Later on I will tell you further of furnaces and point out which are the best of the many different ones in use; but now let us assume that you have in it a fire sufficient for the purpose of the work you have before you. Then having your furnace as I say, in its place, you must put your gold work on an iron plate a trifle larger than the work itself, so that it can be handled with the tongs. And you must so ply it with the tongs and hold it to the mouth of the furnace, that it gets warm gradually, then, little by little, put it into the middle of the furnace, but you must take the greatest possible care that as soon as the enamel begins to move, you do not let it run, but draw it away from the fire quickly, so, however, that you do not subject it to any sudden cooling. Then, when it is quite cool, apply, just as carefully as before, the second coat of enamel, put it in the furnace in the same way, this time to a rather stronger fire, and draw it forth in the same manner as before. After this if you see your work need further touching up with enamel in any of its corners, as is often necessary, judgment and care will show you how to do it. For this I advise you to make a stronger and clearer fire, adding fresh charcoal, and so put your work in again, subjecting it to as strong a heat as enamel and gold can stand. Then rapidly take it out, and let your ’prentice be ready, bellows in hand, to blow upon it as quickly as possible and so cool it. This you haveto do for the sake of the red enamel, the ‘smalto roggio’ of which we spoke above, because in the last firing it is wont to fuse with the others, and so to make new colour effects, the red, for instance, going so yellow that you can scarce distinguish it from gold. This fusing is technically called ‘aprire.’ When it has once more cooled you put it in again, but this time with a much weaker fire, until you see it little by little reddening, but take great heed that when it has got the good colour you want, you draw it rapidly from the fire & cool it with the bellows, because too much firing will give it so strong a colour as to make it almost black.

When you have duly carried out all these processes to your satisfaction, take some of your ‘frassinelle’—these were the bits of stones or sand that I described before when I told you about King Francis’ filigree bowl—and with them smooth your work over until you get the proper effect. Then finish by polishing it with tripoli as I showed you above, also in the filigree bowl. This method of finishing, which is by far the best and safest, is called hand-polishing, in contradistinction to a second method by which, after you have your work smoothed with the ‘frasinella’ and then well washed with fresh water so as to remove from it all dirt, you put it again on to the iron plate and into a clear fire and thus slowly heat it. In this method, by which you get the effect of polish much quicker than with the other, you leave the work in the fire till it is hot, and the enamels begin to run; but its disadvantage is that, as the enamels always shrink a bit, and shrink unequally in the firing, you cannot get so even a surface as by the hand-polishing. You have to take the same precautions, too, as you took when firing your ‘roggio clero,’ or red enamel. In the event of your not employing the latter—as would be the case on silver—you must take great care to observe the same precautions in putting your work in, but do just the opposite in taking it out of the fire, that is to say draw it very gradually from the furnace, so that it cools very slowly instead of very rapidly as was the case with the red enamel. Of course you may have to enamel a lot of pieces, such for instance as little pendants, and bits ofjewellery, and other such things, where you are not able to use the ‘frasinella’ at all. Things of this kind, fruit, leaves, little animals, tiny masks and such like, are applied in the same way with well-ground and washed enamels, but cannot be similarly polished because of their relief.

And if by reason of the great time and labour and patience you spend upon the doing of all this your enamels begin to dry up, and thus fall off in turning your work, this you may remedy in this wise: take a few quince seeds, which you get by cutting the fruit through the middle,choose such as are not empty, and let them soak in a vase with a little water; this you should do over night if you want to enamel the next morning, and you should be careful to do it very clean. Then when you want to apply your enamels, having put a morsel of each colour on your palette (the finger palette I described to you above fixed on to the stem of your leaden pear) you mix with every bit of enamel you lay on your work, a tiny drop of this quince-seed-water, the effect of which is to produce a kind of gum which holds the enamels together so that they don’t fall, & no other gum has a like effect. For the rest, all you have to do is to carefully carry out the methods I have so far explained to you, and whether your enamel be on gold or silver, except in so far as I have told, those methods are the same.

FOOTNOTES:[24]Probably powdered resin; in Hendrie’s ‘Theophilus’ it is given as common white pine resin from which the oil has been evaporated over hot water.[25]Bollirlo in una cenerata.[26]His real name was Ambrogio Foppa.

[24]Probably powdered resin; in Hendrie’s ‘Theophilus’ it is given as common white pine resin from which the oil has been evaporated over hot water.

[25]Bollirlo in una cenerata.

[26]His real name was Ambrogio Foppa.

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