Champlevé
Encyclopedia
Champlevé is an enamelling technique in the decorative arts, or an object made by that process, in which troughs or cells are carved or cast into the surface of a metal object, and filled with vitreous enamel
. The piece is then fired until the enamel melts, and when cooled the surface of the object is polished. The uncarved portions of the original surface remain visible as a frame for the enamel designs; typically they are gilded in medieval work. The name comes from the French for "raised field", "field" meaning background, though the technique in practice lowers the area to be enamelled rather than raising the rest of the surface.
Champlevé is suited to the covering of relatively large areas, and to figurative images, although it was first prominently used in Celtic art
for geometric designs. In the Romanesque its potential was fully used, decorating caskets, plaques and vessels.
Champlevé is distinguished from the technique of cloisonné
enamel in which the troughs are created by soldering flat metal strips to the surface of the object. The difference between the techniques is analogous to the woodworking
techniques of intarsia
and marquetry
. It differs from the basse-taille
technique, which succeeded it in the highest quality Gothic work, in that the bottoms of the recesses for the enamel are rough, and so only opaque enamel colours are used. In basse-taille the recesses are modelled, and translucent enamels are used, for more subtle effects, as in the 14th century Parisian Royal Gold Cup
.
in Europe, from the 3rd or 2nd century BC, where the predominant colour was a red, possibly intended as an imitation of red coral
(as used on the Witham Shield
), and the base was usually bronze
. The "Insular Celts" of the British Isles made especially common use of the technique, seen as highlights on the relief decoration of the Battersea Shield
and other pieces. However this was technically not true enamel in the usual sense of the word, as the glass was only heated until it became a soft paste before being pushed into place. This is sometimes informally known as "sealing-wax" enamelling, and may be described as "glass inlay" or similar terms. True enamelling technique, where glass paste is put into place and fired until it liquifies, was learnt from the Romans. The earliest literary description of enamel is from the Greek sophist Philostratus III, who wrote in his Icones (Bk I, 28), describing polychrome horse-harness: "It is said that the barbarians in the Ocean pour these colours on heated bronze and that they adhere, become as hard as stone and preserve the designs that are made on them".
Celtic curvilinear styles were highly effective in enamel, and were used throughout the Roman period when they largely disappear in other media. The Staffordshire Moorlands Pan
is a 2nd century trulla with large enamel roundels in four colours of enamel, commissioned by or for Draco, a soldier, possibly a Greek, as a souvenir of his service on Hadrian's Wall
. It is one of a group of similar enamelled vessels found in Britain and northern Gaul. Smaller items from similar contexts include brooch
es and other jewellery, and mounts for horse harness as described by Philostratus. Around the end of the Roman Empire new forms arose: the terminals of the increasingly fancy penannular brooches of the British Isles become decorated with champlevé, as do other fasteners and fittings, and the mounts of hanging bowl
s. These last have long puzzled art historians, as not only is their purpose unclear, but they are mostly found in Anglo-Saxon
and Viking contexts, including three at Sutton Hoo
, but their decoration uses predominantly Celtic motifs. One of the Sutton Hoo bowls had been repaired, but in a different, Germanic, style. Altogether, production of the different types of hanging bowls covers the period 400-1100. While the leading expert, Rupert Bruce-Mitford
, sees the bowls as the products of "Celtic" workshops, perhaps often in Ireland, in the same period the use of large areas of champlevé in the most ornate Celtic brooches reduces, though gem-like enamel highlights, some in millefiori
, are still found. In Anglo-Saxon art
, as in that of most of Europe and the Byzantine world, this was the period when cloisonné technique dominated enamelling.
, and many of the finest survivals of the style feature the technique. There was a great increase in use of the technique in several areas in the late 11th century, just as the Romanesque style matured. The immediate source of the style remains obscure; various exotic origins have been suggested, but the great expansion in the use of stained glass
at the same period is probably connected. Copper or bronze bases were normally used, which were soft and easy to work, as well as relatively cheap, but as they discoloured in heat opaque enamels needed to be used. Blue was now the dominant colour, as in stained glass; the best blues in painting (whether on wall, panel or manuscript) were very expensive whereas in glass rich blues are easily obtainable.
Mosan
and Limoges enamels are the most famous, and the figures carved in the copper plate display a superb sense of line. The Stavelot Triptych
in New York is an example of the finest Mosan work, and the Becket Casket in London a fine early piece from Limoges. The names of several Mosan goldsmith
-enamellers are known. Relief and fully modelled figures were also enamelled, and some metal bases formed by hammering into moulds. The Limoges production increased steadily in quantity, and by the Gothic period had declined in quality, but provided a fairly cheap product, especially of chasse
caskets, produced on a semi-industrial scale and exported all over Europe. Spanish enamels, not easily distinguished from Limoges work, were also produced on a large scale. Mosan work was sometimes on gold or silver-gilt
, but in Limoges and Spain gilt-copper
is usual, and much Mosan work uses this too, as in the example illustrated. This example also shows the mixing of different colours and shades within the same cell, here used throughout the design in a complex manner, whereas in the Limoges examples below much less, and much simpler, use is made of this difficult technique.
A similar technique was known as "shippou-zogan" in Japan
, where it was considered a form of damascening
.
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel, also porcelain enamel in U.S. English, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C...
. The piece is then fired until the enamel melts, and when cooled the surface of the object is polished. The uncarved portions of the original surface remain visible as a frame for the enamel designs; typically they are gilded in medieval work. The name comes from the French for "raised field", "field" meaning background, though the technique in practice lowers the area to be enamelled rather than raising the rest of the surface.
Champlevé is suited to the covering of relatively large areas, and to figurative images, although it was first prominently used in Celtic art
Celtic art
Celtic art is the art associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic...
for geometric designs. In the Romanesque its potential was fully used, decorating caskets, plaques and vessels.
Champlevé is distinguished from the technique of cloisonné
Cloisonné
Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous enamel, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné...
enamel in which the troughs are created by soldering flat metal strips to the surface of the object. The difference between the techniques is analogous to the woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
techniques of intarsia
Intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The term is also used for a similar technique used with small, highly polished stones set in a marble matrix .- History :...
and marquetry
Marquetry
Marquetry is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to freestanding pictorial panels...
. It differs from the basse-taille
Basse-taille
Basse-taille is an enamelling technique in which the artist creates a low-relief pattern in metal, usually silver or gold, by engraving or chasing. The entire pattern is created in such a way that its highest point is lower than the surrounding metal...
technique, which succeeded it in the highest quality Gothic work, in that the bottoms of the recesses for the enamel are rough, and so only opaque enamel colours are used. In basse-taille the recesses are modelled, and translucent enamels are used, for more subtle effects, as in the 14th century Parisian Royal Gold Cup
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 nearly 300 years in Spain...
.
Early champlevé
Enamel was first used on small pieces of jewellery, and has often disintegrated in ancient pieces that have been buried. Consistent and frequent use of champlevé technique is first seen in the La Tène style of early Celtic artCeltic art
Celtic art is the art associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic...
in Europe, from the 3rd or 2nd century BC, where the predominant colour was a red, possibly intended as an imitation of red coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
(as used on the Witham Shield
Witham Shield
The Witham Shield is an Iron Age decorative bronze shield facing of La Tène style, dating from about the 4th century BC. The shield was discovered in the River Witham in the vicinity of Washingborough and Fiskerton in Lincolnshire, England in 1826...
), and the base was usually bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
. The "Insular Celts" of the British Isles made especially common use of the technique, seen as highlights on the relief decoration of the Battersea Shield
Battersea Shield
The Battersea Shield is one of the most significant pieces of ancient Celtic military equipment found in Britain. It is a sheet bronze covering of a wooden shield decorated in La Tène style...
and other pieces. However this was technically not true enamel in the usual sense of the word, as the glass was only heated until it became a soft paste before being pushed into place. This is sometimes informally known as "sealing-wax" enamelling, and may be described as "glass inlay" or similar terms. True enamelling technique, where glass paste is put into place and fired until it liquifies, was learnt from the Romans. The earliest literary description of enamel is from the Greek sophist Philostratus III, who wrote in his Icones (Bk I, 28), describing polychrome horse-harness: "It is said that the barbarians in the Ocean pour these colours on heated bronze and that they adhere, become as hard as stone and preserve the designs that are made on them".
Celtic curvilinear styles were highly effective in enamel, and were used throughout the Roman period when they largely disappear in other media. The Staffordshire Moorlands Pan
Staffordshire Moorlands Pan
thumb|Staffordshire Moorlands Pan.The Staffordshire Moorlands Pan is a 2nd century AD enamelled bronze trulla with an inscription relating to the forts of Hadrian's Wall...
is a 2nd century trulla with large enamel roundels in four colours of enamel, commissioned by or for Draco, a soldier, possibly a Greek, as a souvenir of his service on Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
. It is one of a group of similar enamelled vessels found in Britain and northern Gaul. Smaller items from similar contexts include brooch
Brooch
A brooch ; also known in ancient times as a fibula; is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold but sometimes bronze or some other material...
es and other jewellery, and mounts for horse harness as described by Philostratus. Around the end of the Roman Empire new forms arose: the terminals of the increasingly fancy penannular brooches of the British Isles become decorated with champlevé, as do other fasteners and fittings, and the mounts of hanging bowl
Hanging bowl
Hanging bowls are a distinctive type of artifact of the period between the end of Roman rule in Britain in c. 410 AD and the emergence of the Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the 7th century...
s. These last have long puzzled art historians, as not only is their purpose unclear, but they are mostly found in Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
and Viking contexts, including three at Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo, near to Woodbridge, in the English county of Suffolk, is the site of two 6th and early 7th century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance, now held in the British...
, but their decoration uses predominantly Celtic motifs. One of the Sutton Hoo bowls had been repaired, but in a different, Germanic, style. Altogether, production of the different types of hanging bowls covers the period 400-1100. While the leading expert, Rupert Bruce-Mitford
Rupert Bruce-Mitford
Rupert Leo Scott Bruce-Mitford was a British archaeologist best known for his multi-volume publication on the Sutton Hoo ship burial....
, sees the bowls as the products of "Celtic" workshops, perhaps often in Ireland, in the same period the use of large areas of champlevé in the most ornate Celtic brooches reduces, though gem-like enamel highlights, some in millefiori
Millefiori
Millefiori is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware.The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" and "fiori" . Apsley Pellatt was the first to use the term "millefiori", which appeared in the Oxford Dictionary in 1849...
, are still found. In Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman Conquest of a large Anglo-Saxon nation-state whose...
, as in that of most of Europe and the Byzantine world, this was the period when cloisonné technique dominated enamelling.
Romanesque
Champlevé is especially associated with Romanesque artRomanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
, and many of the finest survivals of the style feature the technique. There was a great increase in use of the technique in several areas in the late 11th century, just as the Romanesque style matured. The immediate source of the style remains obscure; various exotic origins have been suggested, but the great expansion in the use of stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
at the same period is probably connected. Copper or bronze bases were normally used, which were soft and easy to work, as well as relatively cheap, but as they discoloured in heat opaque enamels needed to be used. Blue was now the dominant colour, as in stained glass; the best blues in painting (whether on wall, panel or manuscript) were very expensive whereas in glass rich blues are easily obtainable.
Mosan
Mosan art
Mosan art is a regional style of art from the valley of the Meuse in present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Although the term applies to art from this region from all periods, it generally refers to Romanesque art, with Mosan Romanesque architecture, stone carving, metalwork, enamelling...
and Limoges enamels are the most famous, and the figures carved in the copper plate display a superb sense of line. The Stavelot Triptych
Stavelot Triptych
The Stavelot Triptych is a medieval reliquary and portable altar in gold and enamel intended to protect, honor and display pieces of the True Cross. Created by Mosan artists—"Mosan" signifies the valley of the Meuse river—around 1156 at Stavelot Abbey in present-day Belgium...
in New York is an example of the finest Mosan work, and the Becket Casket in London a fine early piece from Limoges. The names of several Mosan goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
-enamellers are known. Relief and fully modelled figures were also enamelled, and some metal bases formed by hammering into moulds. The Limoges production increased steadily in quantity, and by the Gothic period had declined in quality, but provided a fairly cheap product, especially of chasse
Chasse (casket)
A chasse or box reliquary is a shape commonly used in medieval metalwork for reliquaries and other containers. To the modern eye the form resembles a house, though a tomb or church was more the intention, with an oblong base, straight sides and two sloping top faces meeting at a central ridge,...
caskets, produced on a semi-industrial scale and exported all over Europe. Spanish enamels, not easily distinguished from Limoges work, were also produced on a large scale. Mosan work was sometimes on gold or silver-gilt
Silver-gilt
Silver-gilt or gilded/gilt silver, sometimes known in American English by the French term vermeil, is silver gilded with gold. Most large objects made in goldsmithing that appear to be gold are actually silver-gilt; for example most sporting trophies, medals , and many crown jewels...
, but in Limoges and Spain gilt-copper
Gilding
The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...
is usual, and much Mosan work uses this too, as in the example illustrated. This example also shows the mixing of different colours and shades within the same cell, here used throughout the design in a complex manner, whereas in the Limoges examples below much less, and much simpler, use is made of this difficult technique.
A similar technique was known as "shippou-zogan" in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where it was considered a form of damascening
Damascening
Damascening is the art of inlaying different metals into one another—typically, gold or silver into a darkly oxidized steel background—to produce intricate patterns similar to niello...
.