Enamelwork | Definition, History, Techniques, Examples, & Facts (2024)

enamelwork, technique of decoration whereby metal objects or surfaces are given a vitreous glaze that is fused onto the surface by intense heat to create a brilliantly coloured decorative effect. It is an art form noted for its brilliant, glossy surface, which is hard and long-lasting.

Enamels have long been used to decorate the surface of metal objects, perhaps originally as a substitute for the more costly process of inlaying with precious or semiprecious stones but later as a decorative medium in their own right. Whereas paint on metal has a short life and, even when new, is overshadowed by the brilliance of the polished metal, enamelling gives the surface of metal a durable, coloured, decorative finish. With the painted enamels of the Renaissance and the portrait miniatures of the 17th century, the technique reached its most ambitious and artistic form, in which the craftsman attempted to create a version of an oil painting, using a metal sheet instead of a canvas and enamels instead of oil paints. This medium undoubtedly has its limitations—few painted-enamel plaques of the Renaissance, for example, are much more than one foot square—but while oil paints on canvas eventually fade and darken, the colours of enamels are permanent. Relatively few creative artists of distinction have chosen to work in this medium, however, and it has tended to be purely decorative.

Few types of metal objects have not, at some period, been enriched with enamelled decoration. Throughout history, jewelry has been made more colourful by the application of enamels. Similarly, arms and armour, horse trappings, and even domestic items, such as mirrors and hanging bowls, were embellished with enamel decoration. Throughout the Middle Ages, both secular and ecclesiastical objects, such as chalices, cups, reliquaries, caskets, crosiers (a staff carried by bishops and abbots as a symbol of office), and spoons, were elaborately enamelled. With the advent of painted enamels in the Renaissance, tableware was completely covered with enamel, and painted-enamel panels were used to decorate the ceilings and walls of rooms in the châteaus of France. Following upon the invention of the domestic table clock and of the watch in the 16th century, enamelling became one of the most popular forms of decoration for the dials and cases; by the 18th century, items of the drawing room, such as snuffboxes, etuis (cases for small articles like scissors and needles), tea caddies, candlesticks, scent bottles, and thimbles, were frequently made of enamel.

Among the objects decorated with enamels in East Asia are vases, incense vessels, teapots, suits of armour, and sliding doors.

Materials and techniques

Enamel is a comparatively soft glass, a compound of flint or sand, red lead, and soda or potash. These materials are melted together, producing an almost clear glass, with a slightly bluish or greenish tinge; this substance is known as flux or frit—or, in France, fondant. The degree of hardness of the flux depends on the proportions of the components in the mix. Enamels are termed hard when the temperature required to fuse them is very high; the harder the enamel is, the better it will withstand atmospheric agencies, which in soft enamels first produce a decomposition of the surface and ultimately cause the breakup of the whole enamel. Soft enamels require less heat to fire them and consequently are more convenient to use, but they do not wear so well, especially if subjected to friction.

Clear flux is the base from which coloured enamels are made, the colouring agent being a metallic oxide, which is introduced into the flux when the latter is in a molten state. The brilliance of an enamel depends on the perfect combination of its components and on maintaining an equal temperature throughout its fusion in the crucible. The colour of many enamels is achieved by a change in the proportion of the components of the flux rather than by a change in quantity of the oxide. For example, turquoise-blue enamel can be obtained from the black oxide of copper by using a comparatively high proportion of carbonate of soda; in the same way, a yellowish-green enamel can be obtained from the same black oxide by increasing the proportionate amount of red lead.

Clear flux is also used to make opaque enamels; the addition of calx, a mixture of tin and lead calcined, renders translucent enamels opaque. White enamel is produced by adding stannic and arsenious acids to the flux, the quantity of the acid affecting the density, or opacity, of the enamel.

The heated enamel, after being thoroughly stirred, is usually poured out onto a slab and allowed to solidify into cakes of approximately four to five inches (10 to 13 centimetres) in diameter. For use, each cake must be pulverized into a fine powder with a pestle and mortar; the powder then has to be subjected to a series of washings in distilled water until all the floury particles are removed. The metal, on which the powdered enamel is to be spread, is cleansed by immersion in acid and water. All trace of the acid is then removed by washing and by drying in warm oak sawdust. After the wet powder has been spread on the metal, it is allowed to dry in front of the furnace before it is carefully introduced into the muffle of the furnace (a compartment protected from the flame), where it is heated to the point at which it fuses and adheres to its metal base. The firing of enamel takes only a few minutes, and the object is then withdrawn and allowed to cool.

The various techniques practiced by craftsmen in the past differ mainly in the methods employed in preparing the metal to receive the powdered enamel.