used. We accordingly find that almost all the remaining specimens of European workmanship are executed in this precious material. I have never heard of any examples in silver, and only one in copper.
It has been supposed that it is to the Greek goldsmiths of Byzantium that we are indebted for this process of enamelling. At any rate, whether it originated with them, or was borrowed from some more Eastern nation, they most probably introduced this particular process into Europe. The most important remains of the kind are all of undoubted Greek workmanship; and a considerable Byzantine influence may be traced in the greater part of those which seem to have been executed in other countries; added to which, we know of no other kind of enamelling being practised by the Greek artists of early times.[1] This is probably owing to their more usually enamelling on the precious metals. Had they employed copper more frequently, they would no doubt have soon had recourse to the very similar process of embedding the enamel in the solid metal.
We have no trace of the existence of this art in Constantinople before the ninth century. The Iconoclastic fury raging in the East during the eighth century probably caused the destruction of most works of the kind, and prevented others being undertaken. The first notice we have relates to Basil, the Macedonian (A.D. 868—886), who built in his palace at Constantinople, an oratory, which he ornamented with gems and other rich ornaments; amongst which were crucifixes, which are considered, from the expression used, to have been in enamel.[2] Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 949, sent ambassadors to the Caliph Abd-ur-rahmán, at Cordova, with a letter "enclosed in a bag of silver cloth, over which was a case of gold, with a portrait of King Constantine admirably
- ↑ There are in the Louvre at Paris three small medallions of silver, representing saints, that have much the appearance of Greek art, in which the enamelled portions are embedded in the solid metal. The colours employed are a vermilion red, light blue, and light green. The faces are in silver. The enamels are very poor, and being unaccompanied by Greek inscriptions, they may have been worked elsewhere. If Greek, they must belong to a date more recent than the specimens we are noticing. Two of them have been engraved, and described by M. Longperier in the Cabinet de l'Amateur et l'Antiquaire, vol. i., p. 152.
- ↑ Life of Basil by Constantine Porphyrogenitus:—ἐν ᾗ κατὰ πολλὰ μέρη καὶ ἡ θεανδρικὴ τοῦ κυρίου μορφὴ μετὰ χυμευσέως ἐκτετύπωται. Published in the συμμικτα of Leo Allatius, Cologna, 1625, p. 150. For a dissertation on the word χύμευοις, see Lalbarte's Introduction to the Debruge-Dumenil Collection.
