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A Reflection on Verre Églomisé
March 24, 2009
Reflections from polished stone, gilt metal, giltwood, water, mirror, and glass is often a quality that I work to introduce into the rooms we decorate. Reflections change with light and movement and immediately give life to a space. A particularly remarkable and artistic way that we have introduced reflection into our recent projects is through panels of verre églomisé.
These works have been created for us by the artist Miriam Ellner. Ellner works in all stylistic traditions. She excels in the contemporary. Here she can use her ability as a painter to its best advantage. For a client in Chicago, she designed the remarkable panels shown below that incorporate their love of nature and subtle biographical references, such as passport stamps from foreign lands and family photographs.
The art form of verre églomisé can be described as reverse painting on glass. The process has several steps, starting with etching the design, setting it off with color, and then gilding precious metals to it. The gold and silver metals, of course, are the reflective ingredients that give it its mirror like effect.
Historically, verre églomisé is an ancient medium that underwent a great evolution of technique as technologies changed. It began with application on bowls and vessels, then later added as a feature into furniture and mirrors, and finally with the advent of sheet glass and then plate glass, wall decoration. Within room settings, the effect is truly transformative and magical.
I met Ellner in the early 1990’s. I knew about verre églomisé from the famous panels salvaged from the Normandie and installed at the café bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There were also fine examples in the lobby of The Manhattan House apartments where we previously had a client. It was a thrill to meet Ellner, an artist who could make panels of equal beauty.
A Short History of Verre Eglomisé
This technique was first used by the Romans. The earliest known example, a vase, dates from the 3rd century BC in Canosa, Italy. The technique was used commonly throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance starting with reliquaries, devotional panels, and caskets.
By the 17th century, it became fashionable in England for use in mirrors followed by buttons, insets and beautifully decorated Bohemian drinking vessels. It owes its name to an 18th-century French picture framer, Jean Baptist Glomy, whose specialty was the ornamentation of picture frames with sheets of decorated glass that became very popular.
Russian artisans took this genre further during their Golden Age in the 1790’s using both curved and larger sheets of glass for small tables and desks. These pieces were produced in a specialized workshop at the imperial glass factory in St. Petersburg.
By the19th century, the technique became more widely used. Panels were often seen on clocks and pier mirrors. The ability to make larger plates of glass led to more architectural uses including whole shop fronts which often combined advertising and decoration. Trade signs were commonly painted in reverse. There are still a few rare examples in New York of Optimo Cigar signs. In the early 20th century, the French reinvigorated the art of verre églomisé, including the famous panels that form the Normandie. In the latter half of the century, Miriam helped to revive the art again.
Photos from top: These glass paintings using various precious metals and polychromes and utilizing different techniques including verre églomisé, stencil work, translucent layering, collage, and reverse painting; Ellner made these hall panels and fireplace covering for clients who wanted to create the effect of a forest of bamboo within their New York apartment; verre églomisé panels by Jean Dupas from the Normandie now at the Metropolitan Museum; bowl fragment from 4th century A.D.; beaker from 16th century; circa 1790 Russian desk from the workshop of Heinrich Gambs and Jonathan Ott.
Posted by Thomas Jayne on March 24, 2009 |
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June 1, 2012
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A Reflection on Verre ÉglomiséAndre commented:
When Crump discusses the resaons why officials promote the deconcentration of poverty, I think he misses one important motivation. Concentrations of poverty are potential hotbeds of discontent. I’ve read previously that one of the motivating factors of deconcentrating the working class from the inner city to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s was fear of working class revolt. It is much easier for the working class to organize effective resistance when they live close to one another in tight-knit communities, and when they aren’t obliged to spend 2-4 hours commuting to and from work every day. I was reminded of this again in my recent research on the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, when I read that it has been the nightmare of the right and the dream of the left that concentrations of poor living in favelas would ignite revolution. Hackworth writes about how HOPE VI policies make it nearly impossible to mobilize resistance because tenants fear if they become activists against redevelopment projects, they will be excluded from any opportunity of receiving one of the new units. In addition, the dispersal of residents via Section 8 vouchers undermines resistance. I think this point is key. It is interesting to note, however, that since the decimation of The Black Panther Party, the concentration of poor black people in American ghettos has not produced any kind of effective fight back whatsoever. I think in this case, the state decided the murder of all black leaders that spoke of the need for fundamental, structural changes in conjunction with the flooding of their neighbourhoods with crack cocaine would be just as effective as dispersal. The refusal on the part of wealthier communities to allow poor black people to be relocated into their neighbourhoods probably had something to do with this alternate method of quelling revolution. And now the existence of illicit drugs, the prevalence of which was most certainly facilitated, or at least allowed to flourish, by the state is being used as an excuse to relocate when land values are high enough to produce a big profit. The ever increasing prison population is probably indicative of where the state expects all these poor black people to go – not to wealthier communities, but to jail, where they can truly be invisible.
March 13, 2012
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February 29, 2012
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February 25, 2012
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February 24, 2012
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A Reflection on Verre ÉglomiséMusta commented:
In rneaidg the above it just strikes me that one cannot hate another unless it is a reflection of some ideal or belief they hold about themselves. In other words one cannot hate another unless they hate themselves. Land of the Free and Brave Fail
April 7, 2011
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A Reflection on Verre ÉglomiséDaniel commented:
cool
January 29, 2011
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A Reflection on Verre ÉglomiséLisa commented:
Miriam Ellners artwark is vibrant and breathtaking-a feast for the eye that stirs ones soul.
October 13, 2009
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March 31, 2009
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March 30, 2009
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March 29, 2009
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March 28, 2009
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March 25, 2009
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March 24, 2009
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