Champlevé

Champlevé is an enamelling technique in the decorative arts, or an object made by that process, in which troughs or cells are carved, etched, die struck, or cast into the surface of a metal object, and filled with vitreous enamel. The piece is then fired until the enamel fuses, and when cooled the surface of the object is polished. The uncarved portions of the original surface remain visible as a frame for the enamel designs; typically they are gilded in medieval work. The name comes from the French for "raised field", "field" meaning background, though the technique in practice lowers the area to be enamelled rather than raising the rest of the surface.

The technique has been used since ancient times, though it is no longer among the most commonly used enamelling techniques. Champlevé is suited to the covering of relatively large areas, and to figurative images, although it was first prominently used in Celtic art for geometric designs. In Romanesque art its potential was fully used, decorating caskets, plaques and vessels.

Champlevé is distinguished from the technique of cloisonné enamel in which the troughs are created by soldering flat metal strips to the surface of the object. The difference between the techniques is analogous to the woodworking techniques of intarsia and marquetry. It differs from the basse-taille technique, which succeeded it in the highest quality Gothic work, in that the bottoms of the recesses for the enamel are rough, and so only opaque enamel colours are used. In basse-taille the recesses are modelled, and translucent enamels are used, for more subtle effects, as in the 14th century Parisian Royal Gold Cup.

Enamel was first used on small pieces of jewellery, and has often disintegrated in ancient pieces that have been buried. Consistent and frequent use of champlevé technique is first seen in the La Tène style of early Celtic art in Europe, from the 3rd or 2nd century BC, where the predominant colour was a red, possibly intended as an imitation of red coral (as used on the Witham Shield), and the base was usually bronze. The "Insular Celts" of the British Isles made especially common use of the technique, seen as highlights on the relief decoration of the Battersea Shield and other pieces. However this was technically not true enamel in the usual sense of the word, as the glass was only heated until it became a soft paste before being pushed into place. This is sometimes informally known as "sealing-wax" enamelling, and may be described as "glass inlay" or similar terms. True enamelling technique, where glass paste is put into place and fired until it liquifies, was learnt from the Romans. The earliest literary description of enamel is from the Greek sophist Philostratus III, who wrote in his Icones (Bk I, 28), describing polychrome horse-harness: "It is said that the barbarians in the Ocean pour these colours on heated bronze and that they adhere, become as hard as stone and preserve the designs that are made on them".

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