Chapter XXI: Appendix: D

THE BRITISH ORIGIN OF THE ENAMELLED FIGURE

(p. 91)

I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. C. F. Bell, the Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, for the following observations upon the technical characteristics of early _cloisonnée_ enamels. These observations are very germane to, and indeed were partly occasioned by, the questions which surround the Enamel in the Alfred Jewel.

Setting aside the reliquary at Poitiers, which, if it could really
justify its claim to having been a gift of Justinian II to St.
Radigund, would be by far the oldest piece of Byzantine enamel
work in existence, as well as all such specimens as have no
inscriptions or documentary evidence to indicate their age, there
exist, apparently, only two enamelled objects of supposed Byzantine
workmanship that can be maintained to be older than the Alfred Jewel.
These are the iron crown of Monza and the golden altar of Saint
Ambrose at Milan.

With regard to the first, apart from the controversy as to whether it
truly was amongst the jewels given to the cathedral by Theodolinda,
there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether there is any
_cloisonnée_ enamel about the crown at all. Du Sommerard, who was
allowed to make a drawing of it which is reproduced in his _Arts
au Moyen Age_ (Album, série x, pl. 14), speaks of incrustations
of jewels, but makes no mention of enamel. His carefully coloured
illustration shows the plaques described by Labarte (_Arts
Industriels_, i. 312), but the emerald-green ground that figures in
the description is not indicated. Du Sommerard’s plate fails in one
or two other particulars to tally with Labarte’s description; and
as the latter speaks of his difficulty in obtaining a sight of the
crown, it is possible that he mistook in this instance, as he appears
to have done in the case of the Limburg reliquary, what M. Molinier
(_Trésor de Saint Marc de Venise_, p. 48) calls _la verroterie
cloisonnée_—that is, presumably, glass mosaic inlaid in golden
cells—for _cloisonnée_ enamel. At any rate, some fresh opinion is
surely needed to establish the iron crown as a monument of this class
of enamel work.

To turn to the altar of Saint Ambrose. It was made in 838; and
Labarte admits that the Latin inscriptions upon it, and the Latin
name of its artist, proclaim the Italian origin of the greater part
of the work. But the enamels which form a comparatively unimportant
part of the decoration ‘doivent,’ he says, ‘avoir été exécutés par
un des artistes grecs qui travaillaient en grand nombre en Italie
à cette époque. On remarquera que les carnations des figures sont
rendues en émail blanc opaque’ (_Histoire des Arts Industriels_,
iii. 10). Of these enamels the most striking appear to be eight
small, circular medallions upon the doors at the back of the altar.
These medallions do not form an integral portion of the work, but are
affixed, in the manner of jewels, to the framework of the silver-gilt
bas-reliefs, and may in fact be amongst those very English enamels
whose discovery upon the early shrines in continental churches and
museums Mr. Starkie Gardner predicts (_Catalogue of European Enamels
exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club_, 1897, p. ix). Each
represents a diademed head seen in full face, a palm branch, or
perhaps a wing, appearing above each shoulder against a translucent
green background. In motive they thus present an extraordinarily
close parallel to the Alfred Jewel (Du Sommerard, _Arts au Moyen
Age_, Album, série ix, planches 18 and 19).

The earliest enamels of incontestably Byzantine origin, which can be
dated with accuracy by documentary evidence, seem to go no further
back than the beginning of the tenth century. It cannot, however, be
said that these works, with those of closely subsequent periods, have
the appearance of being the productions of the school in its infancy
and early development. Very considerable technical accomplishment
is shown in the manipulation of the extremely narrow gold cloisons,
disposed for the most part in straight or slightly curved lines, and
filling even the spaces of the drapery with closely laid chevrons or
parallel stripes; while the innumerable minute cells thus formed are
filled with homogeneous, brilliant, many-hued enamels. A warm tone of
pink is invariably used to represent flesh.

An impressive object, possessing certain characteristics in common
with the Jewel and other supposed Celtic-Saxon enamels, is the eagle
fibula found at Mainz, and now in the museum there. The present
setting of the enamelled eagle has been supposed to be Frankish,
of the latter part of the tenth or earlier years of the eleventh
century, and the eight small enamelled jewels inserted in the border
confirm this view, as they closely resemble the jewels incrusted upon
the frame of the Crucifixion plaque in the Reiche-Capelle at Munich,
which has usually been attributed to that age (Von Hefner-Alteneck,
_Trachten des christlichen Mittelalters_; Schlumberger, _Nicephorus
Phocas_). The figure of the eagle, presumably, consisted originally
of five plaques, one representing the head, another the tail, two
others the outspread wings, and a fifth the body of the bird. This
last is missing, its place having been supplied, apparently at
the time the setting was made, by a plaque of engraved gold. This
circumstance seems in favour of the idea that the enamels are of
foreign workmanship, and earlier than the setting.

The cloisons of neither the eagle nor the Roach Smith ouche are as
narrow as those employed by the Byzantine enamellers, although they
are at most only half the width of those made use of in the Alfred
Jewel. The doubling of the cloisons into loops, not commonly seen in
Byzantine work but remarkable in the Jewel, is also noticeable in
the eagle. Amongst the five colours employed in the eagle are the
dark, translucent green, and the yellow, considered by Mr. Gardner
as characteristic of Celtic-Saxon enamels, and also the opaque white
such as is used for the flesh tint in the Jewel and the ouche, and,
as Labarte particularly remarks, in the closely analogous heads upon
the altar of Saint Ambrose.

Of all these monuments the enamel of the Alfred Jewel is at once the
coarsest and most primitive in execution. Having been protected by
the rock-crystal pane, its surface is presumably in much the same
state as when it left the maker’s hands. It was, evidently, when it
came out of the furnace, extremely uneven and rough, and had to be
subjected to a grinding process, traces of which are still apparent.
The gold cloisons are dull with minute scratches, and where two ran
close together they have become one confused, ragged line. Both the
eagle and the ouche, although exposed for long periods to the direct
action of the soil, preserve a far higher degree of polish.

Yet the rough workmanship by itself cannot, it must be remembered,
be held to preclude the Byzantine origin of this enamel, since, as
there is not known to exist a single indisputably dated work of
the Byzantine school in its primitive stages, it is impossible to
assert that this school was not, during the lifetime of king Alfred,
producing work as rude in execution as the Jewel. It may be that
such a specimen will some day make its appearance, and determine
the Eastern origin of this enamel and all cognate works. It is also
possible that the discovery of an undoubtedly Irish example may place
above all dispute the contention that it is of Celtic-Saxon origin,
and finally justify the absorption into the same class of the ouche,
the eagle, the eight medallions upon the altar of Saint Ambrose, nay,
even of the crown of Theodolinda itself.