Basse-taille
Encyclopedia
Basse-taille is an enamelling
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...

 technique in which the artist creates a low-relief pattern in metal, usually silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 or gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, by engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

 or chasing
Repoussé and chasing
Repoussé or repoussage is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical...

. The entire pattern is created in such a way that its highest point is lower than the surrounding metal. A translucent enamel is then applied to the metal, allowing light to reflect from the relief and creating an artistic effect.

Medieval examples

The technique had been known to the Ancient Romans, but was lost at the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century. Translucent enamel is more fragile than opaque, and medieval survivals in good condition are very rare. Medieval examples begin in Italy in the 13th century, and spread to other centres for high-quality courtly work, at a time when the champlevé
Champlevé
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...

 enamels associated above all with Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....

 had become almost mass-produced and relatively cheap. It is generally agreed that the late 14th century 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...

, now in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, is the outstanding surviving example of basse taille enamel. It is one of only four known survivals done on gold, including both secular or religious pieces; another is the small Salting
George Salting
George Salting was an Australian-born British art collector of pictures and many other categories of art, whose works were left to the National Gallery, London, Victoria & Albert Museum and British Museum.-Early life:...

 Reliquary
Reliquary
A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures...

, also in the British Museum. The "King John Cup" in King's Lynn
King's Lynn
King's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....

, of ca. 1340, silver-gilt with transparent enamel, is the best example of basse-taille work probably made in England; the metalwork expert Herbert Maryon describes this and the Royal Gold Cup as the "two examples of outstanding merit, unsurpassed in any collection". However it is unclear if most of the enamel at King's Lynn is original. The technique was rediscovered in the 17th century, but was not much practiced thereafter. In a variant of the technique, translucent enamel was applied over a guilloché
Guilloché
Guilloché is a decorative engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically engraved into an underlying material with fine detail...

 machine-turned metal backing by Peter Carl Fabergé
Peter Carl Fabergé
Peter Karl Fabergé also known as Karl Gustavovich Fabergé in Russia was a Russian jeweller of Baltic German-Danish and French origin, best known for the famous Fabergé eggs, made in the style of genuine Easter eggs, but using precious metals and gemstones rather than more mundane materials.-Early...

 on the Faberge eggs and other pieces from the 1880’s until the Russian Revolution, and this technique is still used, usually in a single colour.

Technique

The process for creating basse-taille enamel began by marking the outline of the design and the main internal outlines on the gold with a tool called a "tracer". Then the interior area was worked, either with chasing tools
Repoussé and chasing
Repoussé or repoussage is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical...

, hammering and punching rather than cutting, or with chisel
Chisel
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.In use, the chisel is forced into the material...

s, to form a shallow recess to hold the enamel. The more important parts of the design were modelled by varying the depth of the surface to produce different intensities of colour when the translucent enamel was added; for example in the Royal Gold Cup the gold under folds of drapery often rises near the surface to create a paler highlight. In the example illustrated with Luke's ox the lowest lobe shows tufts of grass formed by cutting deeper into the background. In many of the recessed areas further decoration was added by either engraving or punching which would show through the translucent enamel, or to facet the background so the reflections change as the viewing angle changes slightly. Most background areas to the enamelled scenes were decorated in the same way. Finally the surfaces were cleaned up, made good and polished, perhaps including scraping off any bumps showing through on the reverse of the metal.

The enamel lies flush with the gold surfaces; it was a preparation of finely ground glass paste applied with great care to the prepared recessed areas, and then fired. When different colours of enamel meet each other with a neat boundary, this was achieved by firing one colour with a retaining border of gum tragacanth before adding the next. The difficulty was often increased by the application of tints of a different colour to a base shade of enamel before firing, so that the added colour blends gradually into the background colour around the edges of the tinted area. This is especially used on "flux", or colourless enamel, as in the ground areas, rocks and trees. In the Royal Gold Cup, flux was also used for flesh areas as on a gold background it darkens slightly when hard to a suitable colour for skin. The rouge clair or "ruby glass" red, used so effectively here, was made by adding tiny particles of copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

, silver and gold to the glass; here scientific tests have shown that copper was used. After firing the enamel was polished flush with the surrounding metal, which was presumably decorated last.
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