One of the distinctive art forms of the French Renaissance, enamel painting flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the city of Limoges, in southwest-central France. The production of enamel—essentially powdered glass on a metal substrate—required highly specialized skills, with artists of the Limoges workshops marshaling a variety of materials and techniques to achieve the desired colors, opacities, and other effects. The objects displayed in these cases represent the handful of dominant workshops that operated over generations to satisfy the demand for Limoges enamels across Europe. This includes the workshop of Suzanne de Court, who is the only known female head of a workshop active in Limoges.
Like all of these objects, the saltcellars indicate the wealth and status of their owners. Technical analysis of the Orpheus saltcellars, signed by Suzanne de Court, suggests that they were rarely, if ever, used to hold salt, then a very costly luxury. They were perhaps used primarily for display.
The subjects depicted on the objects displayed here represent the interests of their patrons: chiefly religious and mythological subjects as well as portraits, which were typically made at a small scale. The ambitious plaque of the Triumph of the Eucharist and the Catholic Faith, by Léonard Limousin, combines religious subject matter with a rare group portrait of the powerful Guise family.
Casket: Old Testament Subjects
This casket is composed of fourteen enameled plaques painted in grisaille and lightly tinted with rose, yellow, blues, and purples. The Old Testament scenes depicted include on the front the stories of Tubal-cain and his half-brother Jubal working at an anvil while their sister Naamah strums a gittern (see detail); three angels comforting Daniel in the lions’ den as the prophet Habakkuk brings him food; Moses’ spies carrying grapes from the Promised Land; and Lot plied with wine by his daughters. These plaques, and those on the sides and top of the casket, were almost certainly painted in Pierre Reymond’s workshop in the 1540s; however, a different enameler made the four plaques on the back. The fourteen plaques were most likely mounted together on this casket in the nineteenth century.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
Hollingworth Magniac, London. His sale, July 2 et seq., 1892, Christie’s, Lot 244, sold to Mainwaring for ₤278 5s. J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York. Duveen. Frick, 1916.
Source: Enamels, Rugs and Silver in The Frick Collection. Volume VIII. New York: The Frick Collection, 1977.
