Types of enamel rarely applied to watchmaking

Round watch, Pierre de Baufre, Paris. Middle of the 17th century.

Certain techniques are rarely applied in the decoration of timepieces. They are represented in collections by isolated examples that add up to no more than a dozen pieces. Historians and art lovers cannot fail to devote special attention to them as they are often highly dualistic works. 

Limoges painted enamel

Emerging in the last third of the 15th century, the technique of painted enamel was developed by the enamellists of Limoges during the 16th and part of the 17th century. The process consists in covering a plate made either of gold or copper with black, dark blue or dark grey enamel. The subsequent application by brush of white enamel (tin oxide) in different thicknesses achieves a grisaille design. This can then be embellished by translucent coloured enamels and gold or silver paillons.

Two oval watches bear witness to orders placed with Limoges enamellists. Held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, one, executed between 1610 and 1625, is decorated with scenes inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. The monogram JR featured on one of the paintings ascribes their authorship to Jean or Joseph Reymond. The movement bears the signature of the famous watchmaker and horologer to King James I, David Ramsay. The second is kept in the Musée international d'horlogerie; its decoration is attributable to a member of another family of celebrated enamellists, Jean Limosin.

Under the Second Empire, "Limoges enamel" enjoyed a real revival prompted primarily by two painter-enamellists in the services of the Sèvres Manufactory, Claudius Popelin and Alfred Meyer.

The decoration of watch and clock cases did not escape this fashion. In 1907, Jean-Henri Demole stated with regard to the "Limoges genre": "This genre ... was applied from 1875 to 1885 (approximate dates) to watch cases in a manner of sometimes doubtful taste. These pieces were somewhat reminiscent of white cameos on a dark background; nevertheless, it has to be said that highly artistic and costly pieces have been produced in this genre, above all in Paris."

Several Genevan enamellists such as Henry Le Grand Roy (1851-1914), Frank-Edouard Lossier (1852-1925) and Louis-Elie Millenet (1852-1933) specialised in Limoges enamelling towards the end of the 19th century. Some examples of their work are preserved in the Museum of Horology and Enamelling in Geneva.

Catherine Cardinal: Splendours of enamel