The Painted Enamels of Limoges

Experimenting with a new technique of painting with enamel on copper, the artists of Limoges in central France founded an industry in the late 15th-century that continues to this day. For nearly 200 years they produced plaques and display pieces that were prized throughout Europe and inspired a full-scale revival of the art in the later 19th-century. Among their masterpieces were colourful devotional polyptychs, portrait series or scenes from literature, painted vessels and sets of calendar plates recording the cycle of the seasons. Limoges enamels are an important and delightful manifestation of the culture of Renaissance France and a virtual compendium of European medieval, Renaissance and Mannerist painting and graphic arts. The painters absorbed the full range of contemporary imagery and disseminated it to customers and patrons ranging from village clergy to the French monarchy. The collection of enamels in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art comprises 45 works by many major craftsmen of the Renaissance, including pieces from important series now dispersed; early and late polychrome and grisaille styles; ornamental tableware and wall plaques. A comprehensive introductory essay treats their history, technique, painters, styles, iconography, patronage and collection. Limoges enamels combine exquisite delineation with images and iconography that reflects the peak of Renaissance artistic culture. Susan L. Caroselli is associate curator in the Department of European Painting and Sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has worked at the Frick Collection and the Detroit Institute of Arts.