Bowl with Anemones
Artist: André Fernand Thesmar (French, 1843-1912)
Date: 1900
Dimensions:
2 x 3 5/8 in. (5 x 9.1 cm)
Medium: gold, translucent enamel, plique-à-jour technique
Classification: Metalwork
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. George M. Jones, Jr. Fund
Object number: 2005.43
Label Text:Inspired by Chinese and Japanese enamels, flower painter André Fernand Thesmar worked in plique-à-jour, an enameling technique with the appearance of stained glass, from the end of 1892 until 1908. Plique-à-jour (French for “letting in daylight”) is a technical tour-de-force with translucent enamel suspended within a gold filigree framework rather than fused to a copper or glass base. After the framework is shaped and assembled on an iron form, the open spaces are filled with ground glass enamel suspended in a glue-like medium. The surface tension of the liquid suspends the enamel within the filigree walls, like soap bubbles. The painterly effects of shading and multiple colors within one compartment require great skill. The enamel hardens when fired in an oven and results in a translucent enamel that lets light through the colored cells, like glass windows.
DescriptionHemispherical bowl with a gold base ring and a gold band edging the rim. The curved walls are decorated in translucent enamel with two tiers of ten white anemonies with blue centers, their green stems generating from a brown trellis below, consisting of a row of thin pointed arches. The center of the base bears the mirror monogram "FT" below the date 1900, also in plique-à-jour.
On view
In Collection(s)