2-755-807 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

French Renaissance enamel on metal, pottery painting, metal mosaic, (1898). 'Figs 1-10: Decorations on Limoges-vessels (copper-enamelling), Fig 1 in private possession, Fig 2 from the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre at Paris, Figs 3 and 4 in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. Figs 11 and 12: Fayence gable-heads. Figs 13-18: Decorations on fayence vessels by Bernard Palissy, from the Musée du Louvre at Paris and in private possession. Figs 19 and 20: Borders on fayence plates from Rouen. Fig 21: Little Boule-chest in the Musée du Louvre at Paris...Among the fayence-painters of the 16th century Bernard Palissy, of whose works we give some specimens in Figs 13-18, was of great importance for French ornamentation. The decorations of his fayences...consist in brilliantly coloured reliefs of a warm and vigorous tone. He brought in fashion especially those plates, on which various animals of the water, earth and air are painted with remarkable fidelity to nature...his ornaments...are to be reckoned among the most graceful of French Renaissance. A century and a half after Palissy another artist attained a certain celebrity at the French court, viz Andre Charles Boule [André-Charles Boulle], cabinet-maker to King Louis XVI. He had a special skill in decorating objects of any kind with inlaid-work. From him marquetry composed of different metals, mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoise-shell, fine woods etc is commonly called Boule-Work, (Fig 21)'. Plate 67 from "The Historic Styles of Ornament" translated from the German of H. Dolmetsch. [B.T. Batford, London, 1898]