As discussed in the previous blog entry by the seventeenth century printmakers were displaying their technical mastery through combining engraving and blackwork in their plates. This was soon followed in the second decade of the seventeenth century with new developments to create tonal modelling and a more feathery style.
Figure 1
Esaias van Hulsen
Plate from a suite of 6 designs for goldsmith’s work
Dutch, 1616
V&A inventory number E.3347-1928
Here Esaias van Hulsen has gouged out a complex series of channels to create a mottled tone, emulating the texture of the bird’s plumage and feathery form of leaves and stems of the foliage. This foliate scroll is no longer confined to the form of jewellery which it is intended to decorate, instead spreading across the plate.
Figure 2
Valentin Sezenius
The Nativity
German, 1623
V&A inventory number E.3466-1922
Similarly this print of the Nativity differs in style to earlier blackwork prints. Here Sezenius has gouged channels of different depths to apply ink in various thicknesses for tonal modelling. Now the only use of scheifwerk is the ornamentation of the lining of the Virgin’s robe. The subject matter is also unusual, being closer to devotional prints than blackwork designs. A pendant in the V&A collection demonstrates that, like other blackwork engravings, this was intended to ornament jewellery.
Figure 3
Unknown goldsmith
Pendant in en résille enamel showing The Nativity
Western Europe, 1623-1630 or 1800-1860
V&A inventory number 6996-1860
The pendant is believed to have either been made soon after the print or in the nineteenth century. The scene of the nativity has been reversed during the production of the pendant. Here the tonal gradations of the print are interpreted into the polychrome enamel scheme of the pendant.
Figure 4
Unknown goldsmith
Enamelled back of a pendant
Italy, 1630
V&A inventory number M.133-1922
By the second quarter of the seventeenth century technical advances resulted in enamel decoration being painted rather than produced through the champlevé technique. This brought a fashion for painted enamel, resulting in the demise of the blackwork engraving.
Figure 4
Gilles Légaré
Plate from a suite of 12 designs for jewellery entitled ”Livres des Ouvrages d’Orfevrerie’
Paris, 1663
V&A inventory number 12810.6
Designs for such painted enamel were more easily produced in engraving, which gave a fluid line more in the style of the freely painted enamel detail.
Spanning a production period of almost fifty years these engravings offer a valuable insight into stylistic changes in jewellery design and print production at this period.