Enamels and enamelling; an introduction to the preparation and ...

XXVII.
ENAMELS FOE AETISTIC PUEPOSES.
Enamels play an important part in the arts and artistic
industries, and, by reason of the beauty of their colours and
their durability, are especially adapted for the embellishment
of jewellery and articles of adornment.
In earlier times this branch of art was more studied than
at present, and there are still in existence, the product of past
centuries, works in enamel that constitute artistic relics of high
value. Nevertheless, owing to the present state of chemical
knowledge, we are nowadays in a position to produce enamels
far superior in point of beauty, purity of colour, and dura-
bility, to those of our predecessors.
As is well known, strenuous endeavours are now being
made to elevate industrial art to a high standard, and great
attention is being devoted to works in enamel:
Gold and silversmiths, and workers in bronze and metal
are again largely resorting to enamels for decorating .their
productions, and the same applies, to a not inferior extent,
to the use of enamel in the manufacture of artistically em-
bellished pottery.
So far as the composition and employment of enamel
masses for artistic purposes are concerned, there is little
deviation from the methods already described as practised in
the industrial world, the principal difference being that the
very purest materials obtainable are sought after, since it is
from these alone that enamels of handsome colour can be