ENAM’EL

a vitreous glaze coloured with metallic oxides, and, when first introduced, made to adhere by fusion on metals, . The ancient Baby Jon i ans enamelled bricks. No finer enamelling on bronze was done than that done in early Britain. The ancient Britons achieved great skill in decorating bronze shields, armlets, chariot pieces, helmets, ., with red, blue, and white enamels during the Late Celtic (Early Iron Age) period and later. Indeed it is believed that the champlevé proce Alfred’s Jewel A jewel of blue enamel enclosed in a setting of gold, with the words round it: ‘‘A®lfred had me wrought,” found at Athelney, Somersets hire, in the seventeenth century of excavating hollows for enamel on metal in various flowing and artistic designs of symbolic character was developed in pre-Roman Britain. Phi lost ratus, a third-century cla ical writer, referring to the enamelled trappings of horses, remarks that “the barbarians who reside in Ocean pour these colours on heated bronze, so that they adhere and become hard as stone.” Beautiful specimens of enamelled bronze found in England, Scotland, and Ireland, preserved in the British Museum, include the Batter sea and With am shields, bridle-bits from Dumfries, and Rise, near Hull, and an enamelled ‘terret’ from the Fayum, Egypt, whither, archeologists believed, it was taken by some Roman soldier. Enamelling on bronze and iron was practised in Central Europe and at Koban in the Caucasus at an earlier date than in Italy and Egypt. Byzantine enamels on gold date from the tenth century. ‘ M. Salomon Reinach was the first to point out that red enamels were used as substitutes for coral, which, by the way, had a religious value as a ‘life giver’ and ‘protector.’ The later blue enamel may have been @ substitute for lapis-lazuli, and other enamels, white, violet, green, and yellow, for, other sacred stones, The ancient enamels are more or le opaque. Transparent enamels were favoured in the thirteenth century by Italian goldsmiths.: A favourite method of applying enamel is known as cloisonné, which means inlaid between partitions. The design is outlined in bent-wire fillets, which are fastened to the plate by means of silver solder or the enamel itself. In champlevé work the plate itself is scooped out into channels for the enamel. The distinction between cloisonné and champlevé work, therefore, is something like the distinction between a breastwork and a trench. Enamelled gla is really deeply coloured gla . Bicycle enamel is made of asphalt or resin di olved in oil, each coat being hardened by heat. Enamel paint is made by mixing copal varnish, ., with metallic oxides. A special preparation is applied to leather which is afterwards heated—this is ‘ patent leather.’ Enamel painting dates back to the sixteenth century and is used nowadays chiefly for street signs and advertisements. The term ‘enamel’ is applied to the hard protective coating of teeth.—BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Molinier, Dictionnaire des émailleurs; H. Cunynghame, Art of Enamelling; A. Fisher, The Art of Enamelling upon Metal; H. M. Chapin, How to Enamel.