of cheap jewelry, in the form of brooches, bracelets and the like. There has also been a great demand for enamel watch-cases and small pendants, done mainly by hand, of a better class of work. Many of these have been produced in Birmingham, Berlin, Paris and London. In Paris copies of pictures in black and white enamel, with a little gold paint in the draperies and background, have been manufactured in very large quantities and sometimes of great dimensions. Another curious demand, followed by as astonishing a production, is that of the imitations (a harder name for which is “forgeries”) of old enamels, made with much skill, giving all the technical excellence of the originals, even to the cracks and scratches incidental to age. These are duly signed, and will deceive the most expert. They are copies of enamels by Nardon and Jean Pénicaud, Léonard Limosin, Pierre Raymond, Courtois and others. The same artificers also produce copies of old Chinese cloisonné and champlevé enamels, as well as old Battersea enamel snuff-boxes, patch-boxes, and indeed every kind of enamelling formerly practised. It is advisable for the collector never to purchase any piece of enamelling as the work of an old master without having a pedigree extending at least over forty years. From Japan there has been a continuous flow of cloisonné enamelled vases, boxes and plates, either entirely covered with enamel or applied in parts. Compared with this enormous output, only a few small pieces of jewelry have come from Jaipur and other towns in India. There has also been a great quantity of plique-à-jour enamelling manufactured in Russia, Norway and Sweden. And finally, it has been used in an unprecedented manner in large pieces upon iron and copper for purposes of advertisement.
Amongst the chief workers in the modern revival of this art are Claudius Popelin, Alfred Meyer, Paul Grandhomme, Fernand Thesmar, Hubert von Herkomer and Alexander Fisher. The work of Claudius Popelin is characterized by good technical skill, correctness, and a careful copying of the work of the old masters. Consequently it suffers from a lack of invention and individuality. His work was devoted to the rendering of mythological subjects and fanciful portraits of historical people. Alfred Meyer and Grandhomme are both accomplished and careful enamellers; the former is a painter enameller and the author of a book dealing technically with enamelling. Grandhomme paints mythological subjects and portraits in a very tender manner, with considerably more artistic feeling than either Meyer or Popelin. There is a specimen of his work in the Luxemburg Museum. Fernand Thesmar is the great reviver of plique-à-jour enamelling in France. Specimens of his work are possessed by the art museums throughout Europe, and one is to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. They are principally valued on account of their perfect technical achievement. Lucien Falize was an employer of artists and craftsmen, and to him we are indebted for the production of specimens of basse-taille enamel upon silver and gold, as well as for a book reviewing the revival of the art in France, bearing particularly on the work of Claudius Popelin. Until within recent years there was a clear division between the art and the crafts in the system of producing art objects. The artist was one person and the workman another. It is now acknowledged that the artist must also be the craftsman, especially in the higher branches of enamelling. M. Falize initiated the production of a gold cup which was enamelled in the basse-taille manner. The band of figures was designed by Olivier Merson, the painter, and carved by a metal carver and enamelled by an enameller, both able craftsmen employed by M. Falize. Other pieces of enamelling in champlevé and cloisonné were also produced under his supervision and on this system; therefore lacking the one quality which would make them complete as an expression of artistic emotion by the artist’s own hands. M. René Lalique is among the jewellers who have applied enamelling to their work in a peculiarly technically perfect manner. In England, Professor Hubert von Herkomer has produced painted enamels of considerable dimensions, aiming at the execution of pictures in enamel, such as have been generally regarded as peculiar to the province of oil or water-colour painting. Among numerous works is a large shield, into which plaques of enamel are inserted, as well as several portraits, one of which, made in several pieces, is 6 ft. high—a portrait of the emperor William II. of Germany. The present writer rediscovered the making of many enamels, the secrets of which had been jealously guarded. He has worked in all these processes, developing them from the art side, and helping to make enamelling not only a decorative adjunct to metal-work, but raising it to a fine art. His work may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Brussels Museum. Others who have been enamelling with success in various branches, and who have shown individuality in their work, are Mr John Eyre, Mrs Nelson Dawson, Miss Hart.
Literature.—Among older books on enamelling, apart from the works of Neri and Benvenuto Cellini, are J.-P. Ferrand, L’Art du feu, ou de peindre en émail (1721); Labarte, Recherches sur la peinture en émail (Paris, 1856); Marquis de Laborde, Notice des émaux du Louvre (Paris, 1852); Reboulleau, Nouveau manuel complet de la peinture en verre, sur porcelaine et sur émail (ed. by Magnier, Paris, 1866); Claudius Popelin, L’Émail des peintres (Paris, 1866); Emil Molinier, Dictionnaire des émailleurs (1885). Among useful recent books are H. Cunynghame’s Art of Enamelling on Metals (1906); L. Falize, Claudius Popelin et la renaissance des émaux peints; L. Dalpayrat, Limoges Enamels; Alexander Fisher, The Art of Enamelling upon Metal (1906, “The Studio,” London). (A. Fi.*)
ENCAENIA, a festival commemorating a dedication, in
Greek τὰ ἐγκαίνια (καινός, new), particularly used of the
anniversary of the dedication of a church (see Dedication).
The term is also used at the university of Oxford of the annual
Commemoration, held in June, of founders and benefactors
(see Oxford).
ENCAUSTIC PAINTING. The name encaustic (from the Greek
for “burnt in”) is applied to paintings executed with vehicles
in which wax is the chief ingredient. The term was appropriately
applied to the ancient methods of painting in wax, because these
required heat to effect them. Wax may be used as a vehicle for
painting without heat being requisite; nevertheless the ancient
term encaustic has been retained, and is indiscriminately applied
to all methods of painting in wax. The durability of wax, and
its power of resisting the effects of the atmosphere, were well
known to the Greeks, who used it for the protection of their
sculptures. As a vehicle for painting it was commonly employed
by them and by the Romans and Egyptians; but in recent times
it has met with only a limited application. Of modern encaustic
paintings those by Schnorr in the Residenz at Munich are the
most important. Modern paintings in wax, in their chromatic
range and in their general effect, occupy a middle place between
those executed in oil and in fresco. Wax painting is not so easy
as oil, but presents fewer technical difficulties than fresco.
Ancient authors often make mention of encaustic, which, if it had been described by the word inurere, to burn in, one might have supposed to have been a species of enamel painting. But the expressions “incausto pingere,” “pictura encaustica,” “ceris pingere,” “pictura inurere,” used by Pliny and other ancient writers, make it clear that some other species of painting is meant. Pliny distinguishes three species of encaustic painting. In the first they used a stylus, and painted either on ivory or on polished wood, previously saturated with some certain colour; the point of the stylus or stigma served for this operation, and its broad or blade end cleared off the small filaments which arose from the outlines made by the stylus in the wax preparation. In the second method it appears that the wax colours, being prepared beforehand, and formed into small cylinders for use, were smoothly spread by the spatula after the outlines were determined, and thus the picture was proceeded with and finished. By the side of the painter stood a brazier which was used to heat the spatula and probably the prepared colours. This is the method which was probably used by the painters who decorated the houses of Herculaneum and of Pompeii, as artists practising this method of painting are depicted in the decorations. The third method was by painting by a brush dipped into wax liquefied by heat; the colours so applied attained considerable hardness, and could not be damaged either by the heat of the sun or by the effects of sea-water. It was thus that ships were
