enamelling jewellery - glossary of terminology
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Enamelling is a lovely way to add colour to your jewellery designs but if you have read anything about it you will know there’s a lot of different techniques and terms. This glossary blog post is a great resource for learning more about this fabulous skill.
Enamelling is an age-old technique that has not changed too much since it was used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Celt Chinese and Russians. Probably one of the best known contemporary enamellists is Rene Lalique who was inspired by nature and incorporated such images as dragonflies, butterflies and birds in to his work.
Enamel is a mixture of glass crushed to a powder, flux and metal oxides to produce the colour. It is fired at 900-1000 degrees Celsius so that the glass fuses and ‘melts’ onto the metal.
The metals most often used for enamelling onto are copper, sterling silver 925, fine silver 999 including silver clay and gold.
Enamels are classified into three groups:
Opaque
Opaque enamels give a complete coverage: no light passes through these enamels so the colour of the metal does not show through
Transparent
Light passes through these colours, therefore the metal colour and any texturing reflects through after firing. Especially successful
on silver and gold
Opalescent
These vary in translucency and opacity and have an ‘opal’ or slightly milky appearance after firing. These are rarer, so are more expensive
Flux
In enamelling, flux is a colourless enamel used as an undercoat for transparent enamels, or to seal leaf made of copper, gold or silver. Not to be confused with jewellers flux to clean metal e.g. borax
Counter enamel
Counter enamel is the term used to describe enamel on the reverse of a piece. This is generally used on metals thinner than 1.3mm and on mass produced copper shapes. Counter enamel minimises the stresses on the front of the piece to avoid the enamel 'pinging' off. It is recommended to enamel on silver of 1.5mm thick so you don’t need to counter enamel.
depletion gilding
The process of removing copper from the surface of sterling silver. This leaves a white coloured surface behind to enamel onto.
Enamelling techniques
There are lots of different enamelling techniques. Here are some terms you should know
Dry sifting
When the dry enamel powder is sprinkled onto the metal and fired in place
Wet packing
When the enamel is ground down in purified water and placed onto the metal with a quill before firing
Cloisonné
With the Cloisonné technique, the enamel is contained within wire cells (cloisons). These wires are usually fired onto a base coat of flux (a clear transparent enamel), then filled with wet packed enamel.
This necklace is an example of Cloisonné from a leading Paris jeweller in the Japanese style made by Alexis Falize and Antoine Tard made circa 1867.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Champlevé
Recesses in the metal made by engraving, etching etc are filled with wet packed enamel to form Champlevé
Pictured: Enamelled silver booch set with marcasites, in the form of flowers and leaves, maker Bernard Instone
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Basse-taille
Basse-Taille is a variation of Champlevé, where the engraving and recesses in the metal can be seen through the transparent enamel.
Pictured: This brooch made by Jane Short features both Basse-taille and Champlevé
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Ronde Bosse
The technique for enamelling 3 dimensional shapes e.g. rings and domed pieces
For example, the rings pictured
Plique-à-jour
An open framework of metal is created and the enamel is fired in the opening. This gives a stained glass window effect.
Pictured: Gold pendant decorated with plique-à-jour enamel and set with a peridot and brown, white and yellow diamonds, representing a woman in a woodland setting. Maker's mark for Joé Descomps made circa 1900
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Painted enamel or Grisaille
Similar to painting with enamel, fine layers of enamel are painted on, usually to a white enamel background to form a design.
Pictured: pendant, gold decorated with grisaille enamel, in the centre, Behold the Man! (Ecce Homo), surrounded by scenes from the Passion of Christ; the reverse with painted enamel flowers.
Made circa 1640-1680
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
If you would like to learn enamelling then take a look at our Beginners and Intermediate Enamelling course bundle.
On these courses, taught by enamel jeweller Michelle Leaver, you will learn:
Dry sifting enamel technique
Wet packing enamel technique
Using transparent enamels to show the texture of the metal underneath
Adding decorative wire elements to your designs
The ronde-bosse technique - enamelling a rounded surface including rings and domed pieces
How to prepare a ring for enamelling
How to add foil accents to your enamel designs - gold, silver or copper foil
And much more!