Pierre Reymond developed a sophisticated style of enamel painting, and his workshop was extremely prolific. These two plaques depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ, The Agony in the Garden and Christ Crowned with Thorns, may have originally been part of a larger series, but in the nineteenth century they were framed and surrounded with small roundels depicting a range of Christian subjects. The polychrome plaques are modelled on an earlier enamel by Reymond that he executed in grisaille—monochrome painting in black, white, and gray—now in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Technical analysis confirms that the two plaques displayed here were made with the same batch of enamel, but the higher quality of draftsmanship and enamel application in Christ Crowned with Thorns suggests that they were made by different artists working in Reymond’s workshop.
Plaque: The Agony in the Garden
This enamel may have originally been part of a pair (with 2005.4.02) or part of a larger altarpiece. Although the two plaques were painted by different hands, analysis of the blue enamel in each plaque reveals that they were made in the same workshop and at about the same time. Both depict an episode from the Passion of Christ. In The Agony in the Garden, Jesus kneels in prayer while the saints Peter, John, and James sleep in the foreground. The emphasis is on Jesus’ impending arrest, with Judas and an army approaching on a grassy path painted in a rich blue-green. In the Christ Crowned with Thorns enamel, two tormentors use their weapons to drive the crown of thorns into Christ’s head while a third mocks Christ by placing a reed in his hand as if it were a scepter. The plaques’ monochromatic palette, dominated by white and gray tones, recalls early enamels in grisaille (a technique using shades of gray) by Pierre Reymond.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
