SERIAL PRODUCTION OF LIMOGES CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL
This research project explores the working processes of French enamellers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, focusing on the techniques these artists used to produce intentionally identical objects for consumption across Europe.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Limoges (Haute-Vienne) has long been recognized as a centre of medieval champlevé enamelling; medieval consumers even referred to this specific technique as opus Lemovicense, or ‘work of Limoges’. Such objects were in high demand for churches, monasteries and courts across Europe, and Limoges enamellers produced on such a large scale that the thousands of objects that survive today represent only a small percentage of the city’s output. But exactly how Limoges enamellers came to be precursors to modern forms of mass production is less well understood. This project aims to understand what serial production looks like in practice, using objects made as pairs as case studies, including two sets of candlesticks and panels from a reliquary chasse in the Rijksmuseum collection. How carefully did enamellers match the composition from one object to another? Did they alter basic enamelling techniques to achieve greater quantities of finished products? And where did they acquire the copious amounts of raw materials required?
AIMS OF THE PROJECT
This project comprises research for a larger dissertation on the Limoges champlevé enamel industry, which builds on recent scholarly interest in the symbolic value and physical affordances of materials. In addition to answering questions about serial production as an artistic process in the European Middle Ages, the project also opens new avenues for research into Limoges’ sources of copper and glass. It demonstrates that minute traces of labour – the ways glass is ground or copper is incised – offer opportunities to access otherwise anonymous artists.
RESEARCHERS
Ryan Eisenman
r.eisenman@rijksmuseum.nl
Dr. Anton C.R. Dreesmann Fellow
PhD-kandidaat, University of Pennsylvania
Frits Scholten
f.scholten@rijksmuseum.nl
Senior Curator of Sculpture
Tamar Davidowitz
t.davidowitz@rijksmusem.nl
Metal Conservator
PARTNERS AND SPONSORS
This Fellowship is made possible by the Dr. Anton C.R. Dreesmann Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund, and is part of the Rijksmuseum Fellowship Programme.