There is something enchanting about the unobtainable. The more difficult itis to find something the more we want it. So it is with enamel buttons. The less expensively made, mass produced, enamel buttons of the late 1800’s were once plentiful. With abundant period charm they are popular with collectors and finding them in a collectible venue is less likely now than ever.
Never- the- less, hope springs eternal, the search is the thing and finding brings joy. The lovely enamel button is like a wearable valentine. Painted with pretty ladies, couples, flowers and birds they seem kin to the paper love- tokens we exchange on February 14. Enameling, a truly ancient technique, may be one of the oldest decorating arts applied to buttons.
Examples of the art have been found from as early as 1000 BC. Metals are decorated with a fused-on glassy glaze. Gold, silver, brass or copper may be the base on which to create little masterpieces using the same methods as the ancients differing only in the use of machines and electricity as opposed to hand tools and wood fired kilns. The way these metals are prepared to receive the powdered glass is seen in four differing methods. In cloisonné metal, walled enclosures are built up or soldered on the metal surface of the button and then filled with powdered glass and heat fused. This technique was perfected in the Far East; therefore most of the cloisonné buttons found are from China or Japan.
In producing Champlevé enamel the metal surface is gouged out to form depressions which is then filled and fired. In Europe this method was favored over the painstaking laying on of wires-for-walls in the Cloisonné technique. Most Champleve enamel buttons of the 1800’s are produced of machine stamped brass and then hand enameled.
In the Russian favored Basse-taille decoration, you see an overall symmetrical pattern, stamped on the metal, in low relief and then covered with a transparent enamel of one color.
The sweethearts of the enamel buttons are the painted enamels, also known as emaux peints. Produced mostly in France, the colors on these are not separated by metal dividers. Glass pigments are very finely ground and mixed with water. Like painting with colored sand, each color is applied to an already fired background, usually white, and fired successively with a fired transparent layer of clear to seal and give depth and brilliance.
© Clare Bazley…abuttonlady
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