ENAMEL INDUSTRY. 491 



during the middle ages, as Theophilus ^ has stated and is shown by 

 numerous examples. Enamelled reliquary shrines were especially 

 popular, and not only these but coffins, altars, crucifixes, censers, 

 and other ecclesiastical vessels were decorated with pit enamel, also 

 weapons, girdles, and all kinds of ornamental articles. Instead of 

 precious metals for the foundation, they gradually employed the 

 cheaper copper, on whose polished surface the decorations were 

 sketched and then hollowed out with the graver's burin. It was 

 not till some time later that this work was materially lightened by 

 first casting and then engraving. Pit enamel on copper, like cell 

 enamel on precious metal, made the decoration of large surfaces 

 possible in an entirely different manner, and was predominant in 

 Europe, while Cloisonne enamel found its chief employment in 

 China and Japan. 



German inhabitants of Lorraine introduced pit enamel into 

 Paris. Thence it passed down in the 12th century to Limoges, 

 where it had an extremely flourishing existence. But as in the 

 15th century the art declined in the favour of the public, the 

 Limoges enamel, or enamel painting of Limoges, in which the art 

 of enamelling in general has shown its greatest accomplishments, 

 began to be developed. In the 17th century the still flourishing 

 Faience industry succeeded this enamel painting in Limoges, 

 and was joined in the i8th century by the porcelain industry. 

 The art of decorating metallic objects with surface enamel, and 

 especially pit enamel, gradually disappeared in Europe towards 

 the end of the Middle Ages, without entirely dying out. Its 

 first revival occurred in the 17th century at the ''time of the 

 Patriarchs and Czars," in Moscow, through the influence of Greek 

 masters. Bishops' caps, crucifixes, sceptres, imperial globes with 

 their crosses, shields, swords, quivers, and many other articles 

 were decorated with stones and enamel. But this enamel shows, 

 like modern European cell enamel generally, much more brilliant 

 colours. The cause lies undoubtedly in a difference in process. 

 While in former times, and in Japan and China until within a very 

 few years, the colours were mixed with the other constituents of 

 the cell enamel and combined in the cells or pits by heat to a glassy 

 paste, pieces of coloured glass are now employed. They are 

 thoroughly pulverized and then ground with water to a fine paste 

 with which the cells are filled and again fused. This produces the 

 easier and more perfect filling of the cells, and no less the higher 

 brilliancy of the modern work. They are manufactured in Moscow 

 principally, by the firms Hlebnikow, Ovtschinnekow and Sazikow, 

 though in St. Petersburg also. These Russian productions, with 

 all their magnificence, however, lack often the correct taste in com- 

 bination of the colours which so distinguishes the works of Ravene 



^ Theophilus, or Rugerus, who lived during the middle of the nth century, 

 gives in his manascripts " Diversarum artium schedula," the first description of 

 the manufacture of Cloisonne enamel. 



