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Painting with Glass in Limoges
506 Plays7 hours ago
In this episode, Host Benjamin Miller is joined by Laura Kugel of the Galerie Kugel in Paris to discuss the fascinating art of enameling from Limoges, France. Described by the poet Théophile Gautier in 1866 as “the immarcescible (indestructible) enamel”, these objects from the Renaissance still look as fresh today as they did when they emerged from the kiln all those years ago.
Coveted by the likes of Givenchy, J.P. Morgan and Yves Saint Laurent, these objects remain popular even today. Listen in to learn more about these delightful creations.
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Transcript
Introduction to Curious Objects
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques. I'm Ben Miller. This is the podcast about art, decorative arts and antiques, the stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:24
Speaker
Now, when you think about Renaissance art, what comes to mind is probably the master painters, your Raphaels, your Donatello's, your Leonardo's, you know, the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gig. But there is another medium that has attracted collectors with incredible luminescence and timelessness.
00:00:45
Speaker
This is the world of Renaissance Limoges enamels, effectively painted glass, which is an incredibly challenging but rewarding medium for fastidious artists of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Galerie Kugel Exhibition Overview
00:00:59
Speaker
Now, a new exhibition Galerie Cougel in Paris shows a fantastic group of 17th century pieces, dishes, plaques, terrines, medallions, and more, decorated with these stunningly vivid images. So,
00:01:14
Speaker
Today, I'm excited to welcome back to the podcast Laura Kugel, the sixth generation of Gallery Kugel, to tell us about Immersessible, Limoges Renaissance Enamels and Their Collectors, an exhibition which is on view at their Paris gallery from October twenty second to December twentieth We will find out what Imarcessible means, and of course Laura will tell us the story of today's curious object, a double-sided enamel medallion from around 1530, which depicts a moment of profound religious devotion, Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, and also ah an Old Testament figure of regal and poetic power, King David.
00:02:01
Speaker
Laura, thanks for joining me.
Laura Kugel on Exhibitions and Antiques
00:02:03
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for having me back second time. Last time we talked about 17th century amber. How did that exhibition turn out? ah That was two years ago. It was ah yeah it was an amazing success. and I think by the end of it, people couldn't stand me talking about amber anymore. So now I'm ready to start ah bugging them with a new rabbit hole.
00:02:24
Speaker
Exactly. Well, 17th century amber to 16th century enamel. I look forward to fifteenth century, i don't know, tapestries. is Who knows what's coming down the pike?
00:02:35
Speaker
You'll tell us about it again on Curious Objects, I'm sure. But for now, it's time for your favorite part, the rapid fire questions. Are you ready? I'm ready. So Laura, what is the weirdest use of an antique that you've ever seen?
00:02:50
Speaker
Well, just today, it may not be the weirdest, but I was giving a tour to a and sculpture curator from a prominent American museum. And I wanted to show him a porcelain ah representation of a famous bronze sculpture where my colleague had put our exhibition label in the hand of the little porcelain character ah being held that way, which was fairly embarrassing. um Hopefully this man found it charming enough. ah Maybe not the weirdest, but the most recent moment of weird that I've encountered.
00:03:25
Speaker
What artist or a craftsperson or movement or style do you think is overrated? NFTs, obviously. yeah Yes. Okay. Well, I think the craze for the craze for that is maybe over by now, blessedly. Yes, I'll think so why, but we can all agree somehow. Yeah. Not as controversial of a statement as it would have been two years ago. ah What's the one object that you regret not buying when you had the chance?
00:03:54
Speaker
The one object that I regret not buying was a fantastic vase in the shape of a corn ah by Texel Doat, which came up for sale in the US a little recently. He's a French porcelain maker from the 1900s. But I discovered his work in America, where he traveled and worked extensively. And I just was obsessed with this piece that ended up being purchased by a museum that's going to organize a big exhibition and about
Exploring Limoges Enamel Medallion
00:04:23
Speaker
him. So fair enough.
00:04:25
Speaker
So at least you'll be able to see it. Yeah. What's the most unexpected place where you've found something extraordinary? Anywhere. you know Everywhere has extraordinary things and no specialty is overrated. i mean, some pieces are overrated within each specialty. um Same goes with places.
00:04:42
Speaker
Everywhere has magic. This summer, I was in Savoy in the French Alps um for... you know a few weeks of nature hikes and what I expected to be no interaction with museum or art whatsoever. But I discovered the wonderful world of Baroque Savoy churches, which have their own little style with makers that cross the Alps from Italy. um And I was completely flabbergasted.
00:05:06
Speaker
Any new video games to recommend? Last time you told us about Assassin's Creed. That's true. I did. um No new video game recently. i feel like perhaps it's now my time to start reading some books again. um But I did pre-order, I believe, a newer Assassin's Creed, which will be set in ah feudal Japan. So I can tell you about that one later. Excellent. So maybe the next exhibition will be um Japanese decorative arts. That would be exciting to me.
00:05:39
Speaker
What's the best bargain that you've ever scored on an antique? You personally, not necessarily the gallery. At Tefaf in Maastricht a few years ago, I discovered an English Staffordshire puzzle pipe, which I encourage all your listeners to Google. They look basically like a spaghetti, very, very long spaghetti that's kind of swirled around the concept of the puzzle pipe, also called the philosopher pipe, is that if you have a problem and you start smoking it, by the end of your tobacco, you'll have solved anything. Anyway, it was extremely weird. I bought it um and... I don't think anyone really cared. And then all of a sudden, someone wanted to buy it from me. So since then, I've been buying all of them that I can find. And I think I've solely created the 21st century market for puzzle pipes. If you have a puzzle pipe, call me.
00:06:28
Speaker
Fantastic. We're going to have to do an episode on that sometime. Do you know about them? I'll send them to you. I've seen them, but I i can't say I've ever done a deep dive. Fantastic things. What's the strangest thing that somebody has offered to you thinking that it was valuable?
00:06:42
Speaker
Well, I get offered a fair amount of Michelangelo's and Leonardo's a year. um That's for sure. I get offered, i mean, I will not tell you the story of um an art dealer by mistake showing me a very rare Renaissance miniature
Production and Appeal of Limoges Enamels
00:06:59
Speaker
in a wonderful er frame. And when I looked at it more closely, I realized it was just a printed piece of paper.
00:07:07
Speaker
Oh ah ah What's the one question about an object that you've never been able to answer, but wish that you could?
00:07:17
Speaker
yeah Did people use this in relation to a lot of objects, in relation to limoge enamels? I mean, a lot of people in the world of silver ask me if people used what we call nefs, which are those boat-shaped silver vessels from the 1600s. And I think the whole literature can still not agree on whether or not they were filled with wine and used to pour at big banquets or simply pretending and just sitting on a shelf.
00:07:46
Speaker
That's so frustrating to me. I mean, it's a question relevant to so many forms, so many types of objects that unfortunately nobody was snapping um Instagram pictures at those parties. So we just don't really know how or if they were being used.
00:08:04
Speaker
and What's the ugliest object you've ever seen that you secretly love? Every object that I thought at first was ugly, um i learned to love.
00:08:15
Speaker
ah So we sold to a museum concerned with the works in glass, a fantastic Venetian chair um made with glass beads that was the pinnacle of Rococo. And when I saw it appear, I thought it looked like something out of a... Beauty and the Beast ah cut scene. And it really shocked my eye for a second. But then on second glance, i just, the ugly vanished and the fantastic was born.
00:08:43
Speaker
I love that moment, that transition from not understanding something to understanding it.
00:08:52
Speaker
Okay, well, we'll be right back with Laura Cugel as soon as I say, thank you for listening. This podcast is a passion project and i couldn't do without you listeners.
00:09:04
Speaker
If you're enjoying these deep dives into the stories behind the world's most fascinating objects, there are a couple of things you can do to help. ah First, you can subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app.
00:09:15
Speaker
That is the easiest, best way to make sure you never miss a new episode. And second, if you have a moment, please leave us a rating and a review. That really helps new listeners to discover the show and tells me what you love about it or maybe don't love about it.
00:09:32
Speaker
Either way is fine. But if you know of a curious object that you'd like us to feature, please get in touch. You can reach me via email at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com or on Instagram at Objective Interest. I'm always on the lookout for our next story.
00:09:52
Speaker
Okay, now, Laura... ah Could you just start by describing our curious object for listeners? It's it's a fantastic work of art, and i really hope folks will take a look at at images at the magazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:10:09
Speaker
um But either way, just paint a picture for us with your words. Yeah, absolutely, Ben. um So the the curious object of the day was very difficult to pick amongst the kind of amazing group of Limoges enamels from the Renaissance that we've gathered. ah We're talking about over 70 pieces, um some of which include pairs or, you know, a series. So nearly 100 individual objects. um But I picked what did you rightly described as this double-sided medallion, which incidentally will be the cover of the book that we're publishing. I'm going to put them as the exhibition because ah it speaks to all the different layers that we wanted to convey in this show.
00:10:53
Speaker
um It's a double-sided medallion of about 13 centimeters, so that's a little bit smaller than the size of my hand. and It's extremely detailed and has a lot of very vibrant colors. Several pieces that we'll be showing are in this technique called grisaille, which is almost a monochrome of different shades of from black to white to gray with little pink and gold highlights. and This one is not the case. It's very vibrant. It has green, blue, oranges. And as I'm sure we'll discuss the technique of enameling It's very complicated when you want to add all these layers of colors, which are made out of different mixes of pigment.
00:11:33
Speaker
They cook at different temperatures. This is kind of an alchemy feat to be able to to to realize something like this. It's from the early...
00:11:45
Speaker
16th century, around 1530s. And it's attributed to a master that we are focusing a lot of our exhibition on called the Master MP, a mysterious figure whose name we haven't been able to find, but we think the P stands for Pénico.
00:12:01
Speaker
which is one of the one of the main ah family of enamelers in Limoges. And we have managed to gather a corpus of a handful of works that we can attribute to this master in this exhibition, others that we have sold in the past, based on a small amount of works that are signed NP in the Louvre, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and so on.
00:12:24
Speaker
And because our exhibition is really about the object, but also about the market for these objects, I thought it was fun to show you ah something that displays very interestingly how the literature and what we know about those works is constantly evolving. And so we are in fact able to bring back to the light um new works by new artists, rediscover re-emerging artists, if you will.
00:12:51
Speaker
And It's enamel on both sides, which I'm sure you'll feature on your Instagram page and on your various media. And that's one of the specificities of this artist. ah Typically, Limoges enamelers would either, if they made a plaque, enamel but not decorate the reverse or decorate it in a way where it was obviously the reverse. So with maybe less vivid scenes, maybe less um expressive iconography. In this case, they're both very mysterious. One is in all these crazy colors that i described. The back is in just a very strange milky white mixed with gold. um it's yeah it's's It's a beautiful object that completely illustrates um why this technique was so sought after. It's almost like you're holding a magnified jewel in your hand. and You want to have a magnifying glass and just examine it for hours and hours and hours.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, it's beautiful, it's captivating. It's, as you mentioned, incredibly difficult to produce, and we'll get into that in a minute. But given the the sophistication, given the challenges of of producing it, ah can you tell us why enamel was such ah an appealing medium for decoration in this period?
00:14:08
Speaker
It's always a little bit hard to understand those reasons at first, and they are, of course, always and a mix of a variety of sociological, geographic, historic um factors. But I would say that for sure what's have seemed to attract collectors through the ages, from the medieval production to the Renaissance, to long after in history, to our time, to those works, um is their rich colors, shiny polish. um And I think originally, even though they were quite costly, they were still less costly than gold, and yet they were shimmering like gold. They were precious like gold. So I believe this may have been one of the reasons um
00:14:49
Speaker
And then Limoges emerged very early on as a big center, so much so that these works still bear the name of the city attached to it, which is fairly rare in our world. um And of course, the enamelling technique is vast and has been applied to to all kinds of objects. um But the Limoges enamel is something very specific. And Limoges and its region was a very pious monastic um region crossed by a big river in kind of the middle of France, so a perfectly placed ah location for trade routes. And they started producing those at first liturgical objects um for a lot of different courts of Europe.
00:15:31
Speaker
And it's only a little bit later in the Renaissance that the subject matters that we cover in our show started developing, let's say mythological subjects or much more profane and painted limoges began. It's interesting. I mean, I think listeners, many listeners will be familiar with some of the older coffers and reliquaries with limoges enamel a decoration that you might see in in museums around the world. But this later material the that the exhibition features,
00:16:02
Speaker
I mean, and in a lot of ways, it's much more refined. It's much more sort of painterly and illustrative and artistic, but it's still associated with the same region.
00:16:15
Speaker
How did Limoges sort of emerge as this um this specialized location for the production of these things? why Why was it that other places didn't start to copy their work and distribute it more widely? um It's kind of a story about know-how. So what you're describing and what you're right, the listeners might know the very medieval limoges, which are often golden copper against blue, typically blue grounds and in the shape of caskets or so on.
00:16:48
Speaker
These were um in a technique called cloisonné, where within a copper plaque, they would carve little shapes. It's almost like paint with numbers, right? And then they would fill its shape with a different color and it would make a figure appear. Then in the mid 14th century, for various reasons, including the Black Plague, there's a stop and kind of a freeze in this whole production that re-emerges in the early Renaissance. And of course, the Renaissance is all about... ah focusing on beauty, the beauty of nature, but also humanistic ah typologies of iconographies. So the production stays partly religious, but moves away from solely religious. You have portraiture that emerges, mythological scenes, as we said, and all kinds of references to the ancient world and to to classics. And indeed, as you mentioned, this ability to now paint with the enamel instead of filling it. um And this know-how also emerged at that specific time
00:17:46
Speaker
Almost, I would say, as an answer to other types of works. So it's quite close to Italian maiolica. It's quite close to Murano glass. In fact, some of the objects share very, very close shapes. um And you could see that there must have been some...
00:18:02
Speaker
some ah some influences, same goes with the world of silver. You can see ah little wings from one technique to to another, um but the the finish that they were able to obtain Limoges, because even though there was a little gap, there were already centuries long um experience in this ah in this technique was considered so amazing that at one point in the French Renaissance, it would cost you even more to get your portrait done in Limoges enamel than to get your portrait done by the court painter.
00:18:38
Speaker
so So come back now to our curious objects. So we've described this as a ah medallion, but but what does that mean? I mean, what what really is that and what what's what's it for?
00:18:49
Speaker
So these medallions that are kind of small in sizes with religious objects were usually for private devotion, um if not ordered by some churches. And these apparently were known to be inserted and adorned types of object called Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, if you may know, ah which also contained ah little depictions of the Pascal Lamb,
00:19:16
Speaker
um So they they did have this kind of religious function or religious intention, even though they are also, i would say, not austere, right? they are They are glossy, they are fun to look at. It's not ah it's not a very overwhelming and overpowering depiction of of religion.
00:19:35
Speaker
But these objects were often dismantled as history went on. um Sometimes different parts were were sold as independent parts. So we don't always exactly know what the original purpose was. It's obviously...
00:19:50
Speaker
more logical that they were inserted on an object than frame because it's really meant to be admired on both sides. Because as I said, both sides are of incredible and equivalent ah quality.
00:20:02
Speaker
And in terms of the physical process for creating it, I mean, you alluded earlier to to how difficult is these pieces were to make. what What did that process look like?
00:20:14
Speaker
So from what I understand, and it's still not completely clear to me, I imagine this process involved a very big furnace, that's for sure. Limoges imported a lot of copper, again, because it was situated on this river.
00:20:29
Speaker
in between trade routes, it was quite easy for them to supply themselves with ah those kinds of raw material. And copper was chosen because of its ah low cost compared to other metals. And it's rather easy to deal with. um And also it burns at a much higher temperature than the variety of limoges paste, of glass paste. So you would completely coat the copper plaque ah that would be molded either as a dish, as a cup, as whatever objects you wanted the the shape to be.
00:21:04
Speaker
And then each color, um each pigment would cook at a different temperature. So it's almost like a lacquer work in the kind of mental ah description you might ascribe to it of very patiently understanding the process of what is the first coat you put, what is the first color. Then you have colors that for the sake of adding a translucent um aspect, they would add a little sheet of silver or a little sheet of gold or a little sheet of shiny metal. um And when you look at the object and you kind of move it around to the light, you really see that there's depth to each of ah the colors and the coats. and And you start understanding that they are in fact ah layered on top ah on top of each other. Then at the end,
00:21:48
Speaker
with a much more fine brush, little gold gold highlights were applied either to write inscriptions or to add little details like jewels or things like this. They were cooked, I think, at a much, much
Historical Significance and Iconography
00:22:03
Speaker
lower temperature. So they are almost like an after glaze um and some of them rub off quite easily. um But apart from that, those objects and the magic of those objects is that when they are correctly handled. um They look the same, if they're in good condition today, as they did the day that they left the kiln, which I think is not the case with many antique subjects. And you and I, and a lot of your listeners will know what we mean when we say something has patina and we like it, but some people
00:22:35
Speaker
maybe really ascribe this kind of older looking surface to you know a displeasing characteristic. um In the case of those objects, it's not like that at all. They are fantastic. They look brand new, which is a very odd thing to say for an antiques dealer when you yeah're describing ah our own stock, but it's actually true. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, ah it's it reminds me a little bit of a gold objects, gold jewelry, which similarly doesn't really change very much over time. So you pull an Etruscan gold necklace out of a tomb and you're looking at basically the same object that somebody in the third century BC was looking at. And, you know, it can it can really act as a time capsule in that way.
00:23:24
Speaker
But I was interested, you know, you referred to the fact that in these enamel works, each color had to be applied separately, which means that really there there was a great deal of planning.
00:23:39
Speaker
and This is not the Bob Ross style sort of, oh, I'll see how this thing comes together and add a little bit here and add a little bit there. I mean, presumably these artists really had to know from the very start exactly what the finished product was supposed to look like, right?
00:23:57
Speaker
Yes, and then when you study Limoges enamels, you start to understand very quickly that we're talking at the top level about a handful of family dynasties. So obviously this knowledge was really centralized within a very few amount of workshops, taught from father to son, to nephew, sometime to daughter, because we know of at least one female enameler who signed of works, maybe there were more.
00:24:24
Speaker
I don't know exactly. Suzanne de Cour, she will be the topic of an upcoming exhibition at the Frick Collection in the next couple of years. She's definitely being very studied right now. So you also are able to recognize the same style generation after generation within the same ah family workshops. um But those objects were so sought after in in the 16th century, all the way through you know the first quarter of the 17th century, when that was really like a craze, um that they were probably very wealthy
00:25:00
Speaker
um makers. And so they definitely led sophisticated ateliers with a lot of people with different ah different jobs to deal with the metal, to deal with the pigments, mixing the pigments, cooking the pieces and so on.
00:25:17
Speaker
Can we talk about iconography for a second? Because the scenes depicted on this medallion are really quite fascinating. What what can you tell me about the choice of subject?
00:25:28
Speaker
One specificity of the Limoges workshops of that time, as it is the case with a lot of ah different workshops of decorative arts in the Renaissance, is they clearly had to their availability um different engraved sources. So this is really the moment where you have a mini globalization of iconography within Europe, at least. um And especially when you look at profane scenes and mythological scenes, you find some time and again on different materials treated differently, but you're able to to recognize them.
00:25:58
Speaker
Obviously, this one maker, the famous MP, ah also probably had this availability of iconographic sources. But I find that his works um and the way that he composes his scenes on those very small size ah objects are very inventive um and not just a copy and paste of one engraving. Maybe little inspirations are taken here and there. um but it's not just something that you can completely match to one one source. ah The main side is San Francis receiving the stigmata, but to me, this is almost anecdotal because it's actually a landscape scene. San Francis is very small, as your listeners will see when they look at the picture in the grand scheme of how much is going on on such a small format. Yeah, I mean, it's it's extremely busy, and it it it reminds me a little bit of the Bruegel picture of the Fall of Icarus, where the titular subject of the painting is actually almost an afterthought.
00:27:02
Speaker
I find it completely captivating. You know, there there's a little... a little town maybe a church, maybe a castle. There are sort of travelers and craftspeople and swaddled infants.
00:27:15
Speaker
And then in the midst of all of that, you have Francis with these rays of of sunlight penetrating through the atmosphere. I mean, it's it's quite... I think it would be at home in a, i don't know, in a children's book or something, you know, where it it just draws your attention from one thing to the next thing to the next thing.
00:27:35
Speaker
I think that's one of the aspects of those works that are easiest to understand today. You you said the right word. There is something quite comical about it, almost like a comic book, um because there are really illustrations. You see the line. and They are sometimes filled with humor. There are scenes of banquets. The mythological scenes can be ah quite ah quite boisterous and and very expressive. So definitely you're right on this one.
00:28:04
Speaker
So the exhibition is, of course, in part, it's it's a display of these fantastic works of art, but in part, it's also, there's a meta level to it, right? Because this is an exhibition about the history of the collecting of these pieces, as well as just being about the pieces themselves. So I want to talk a little bit about provenance and then the sort of heritage of the collecting of lumers enamels.
00:28:33
Speaker
um and And maybe you can start with our curious object and tell us what you know about where it's been. Yes, the curious object of the day does have a good provenance that dates back to the 19th century. um Mostly French aristocratic provenance of the two families, one called D'Arembert and then The counts of Merod, they are known in america in American museums because they are works at the cloister, for example, that belong to this family. um They are not by any means the most prominent collectors that we are discussing in our in our catalog, but it does illustrate quite well. um
00:29:15
Speaker
that these were often collected by people who really cared for them, great collecting families. um And this is kind of the sub theme of this whole exhibition. When we focus on Amber and we chatted with you last, and at least for the French audience, it was a complete discovery. Those objects were not very well known and no exhibition had ever focused on it in France, at least.
00:29:39
Speaker
Limoges enamels of the Renaissance are a little different. They are prominently featured in French museums, in American museums, even in Italian museums, because all European courts widely collected them at one point or another. um And even though there hasn't been, I guess, recently a big show about them, we felt like visually ah people are much more aware of of what they are. What will be impressive in our exhibition is the mere volume and variety of what will be presented in terms of iconography, typology, rediscoveries from private collections or discoveries at auction of pieces that hadn't been seen for 50 or 70 years.
Market and Collector Interest
00:30:22
Speaker
um And also just simple fact that when you see when you see a wide variety of the same type of object in one place, you kind of really get it instead of just looking individually you know um at one work, one at a time in a hyper curated manner.
00:30:39
Speaker
So you you've told me about the role that the famous dealer Duveen played in bringing Limoges Renaissance enamels to the eye of the collector and specifically of Frick.
00:30:54
Speaker
um And then, you know, that sort of lineage, travels up and down and up and down. There are periods of interest, periods of disinterest.
00:31:05
Speaker
um The exhibition press release notes the relationship between Galerie Kugel and Givenchy and how that relationship revolved around a collection of enamels.
00:31:21
Speaker
So there's really quite a ah complicated, as I said, meta history around this. Tell me a little bit about this sort of the emergence in the modern era of collecting interest.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's the this this theme to me is very interesting ah because I think for people like you and i who try to um give audiences the desire to pay interest to antiques and decorative arts, sometimes a lot of ah a lot of the public doesn't understand that there's a market for those works. um A lot of our colleagues use the words museum quality objects, I think a little bit too much um in the sense that now some people who might follow the art market really just think it's about contemporary and modern works when really it's not the fact at all. So in focusing on Limoges enamels collectors, basically since their creation to now, we wanted to show that you can in fact study an art market over the course of 500 years and not just a few years. And you find patterns that repeat that are very, very close to what happens today. So I'll give you a brief overview of, in a very rough sense, how the trend evolved.
00:32:35
Speaker
The Limoges enamels at their creation for about a century were the craze. um And then at some point in the 17th century, their fashion started fading. I think partly due to the increased fashion in oriental porcelain.
00:32:51
Speaker
that started arriving in Europe, Chinese, Japanese porcelain, which have a similar ah feel, a similar look, you know, a glaze also, they are also the arts of fire. um And this kind of is the moment where the most popularity goes down, you have a few collectors who are just very, very cultivated, aware you know, men mostly who continue to collect them like Mazarin, like the famous Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who was this ah great figure, this diamond ah dealer who traveled the world. um
00:33:27
Speaker
But other than that, it's kind of a low moment. And then in the late 18th century, the story starts shifting elsewhere. So you have people like Horace Walpole in England, but mostly you have the French Revolution and After the French Revolution, as soon as the early 1800s, a lot of collections in France get nationalized. You have the King's collection and museums open. And when museums open, the public starts noticing new things and Limoges get displayed. And I think that's a moment where there's a new interest in it because simply collectors hadn't seen that kind of material for decades, if not centuries.
00:34:04
Speaker
And this gets coupled with the great exhibitions of the mid 19th century, where families that did have some um and had had some in store for a long time start showing them, you know, to illustrate all the know hows of France in this instance.
00:34:18
Speaker
And there you have the Rothschild who show all their limos and all of them are showing all their collection next to each other, almost rivaling. um And a lot of people flock to those events and see them.
00:34:30
Speaker
um But of course, there's a whole American story to this. We're very grateful to ah Ian Wardropper who just retired from the Frick Collection as director and who oversaw a lot of fantastic exhibitions and the whole refurbishment. He wrote the preface of our catalog because Limoges enamels of the Renaissance are in fact his first love, I suppose, as a curator before he became a director.
00:34:57
Speaker
And he does talk at some point about Frick's relationship to the 40 or so pieces um that are on show at the Frick Collection. Indeed, Joseph Duveen encouraged Frick to buy JP Morgan's collection of Limoges enamels. Of course, Morgan donated a lot to some of the museums, but Frick does buy this ensemble and we found the number that he spent, which is almost $1.2 million dollars at a time where for the Bellini, he spent just above $150,000. That gives you a scale, even at that time of value and of what those works represented. And it's not just about Morgan and Frick. You have other people in America like ah Walters, the Walters art gallery in Baltimore has a fantastic collection. um
00:35:49
Speaker
so it was very appreciated by American collectors. Of course, it is meta for us in a much more ah recent capacity. um Because again, i would say in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these were not the most sought after artworks, um even of fans of decorative arts, silver or other things were much more actively collected. But one man who took advantage of this lack of attention at that point was Givenchy, who patiently cherry picked absolutely fantastic pieces, all in grisaille, so all in this kind of monochrome, and made a collection of 35 pieces or so.
00:36:32
Speaker
That at some point in the mid ninety s he asked my father and uncle if they would buy it from him. They were young dealers at the time and it was a big task, but they did purchase the whole collection. And not only did they do that, they thought that he did such an amazing job creating this ensemble that it would have been a shame to sell them piece by piece. And so they offered for sale at a Biennal in 1994, I believe, the Givenchy Renaissance Limoges enamel collection. um
00:37:04
Speaker
to the dismay of many of their peers or of curators who said it's so stupid to sell something as a set. It's obviously so much harder. But in fact, it did succeed because again, the effect of all of these works together on one wall was apparently so striking that immediately it got purchased by Saint Laurent and Pierre Berger.
00:37:22
Speaker
ah whose renown as collectors was already more than established. And just this sale created enough rumor um and discussion for for my father and uncle to get requests by other collectors, some Americans, some Europeans, to create similar ensembles with the same works.
00:37:42
Speaker
So for them, it's a very personal story. um And today, Limoges in Mammals are is a very strong market filled with passionate people who collect the top, top pieces, you know, the multi-million pieces. And...
00:37:59
Speaker
Collectors that are very generalist, who have a variety of interests, who just want one or two or three pieces because they just find it so appealing. um And maybe they won't necessarily need a whole set, but it's ah yeah it's a very dynamic market. It attracts a lot of younger collectors, I think because of this Givenchy-Saint-Laurent connection, because we've seen a lot of pictures of those works.
00:38:22
Speaker
installed in what were honestly some of the most beautiful houses, at least in Paris of ah the 20th century. So they have this kind of iconic feel for people who also love beautiful interiors and and and interior design.
Conclusion and Exhibition Details
00:38:35
Speaker
The title of the exhibition is Imarsessible, and I always love learning a new word. I'm not ah not above admitting this is a new one for me and might be for some of my listeners too. So tell me, why what does that what is that word and why is it the title of the show?
00:38:53
Speaker
Well, I hope that Imarsessible will be the new word of the year 2025-2026.
00:39:01
Speaker
We found this word in an 1866 poem by Théophile Gautier, where he praises enameller and he uses the world the word immaciscible, which means the that never fades or that's eternal.
00:39:17
Speaker
um in discussing exactly the work of enameling. So it's not related to the to the Renaissance enamels specifically, but it does work. And I think it's exactly this feature of those objects that make them stand the test of time, that make them very attractive today,
00:39:38
Speaker
a hundred years ago, hopefully a hundred years from from now. um And it, i don't know, it brings them up to this almost poetic ah surface. You know, there is something in this shimmer, in this translucence, in this superposition of layers that you kind of dive into um like like you would in a poem. so Yeah, we thought this had the little mysterious cachet that would make a few people curious enough to come see the show just to kind of guess what the word means.
00:40:08
Speaker
I think that's a beautiful note to end on. and Once again, the the exhibition is immorcessible. Limoges Renaissance enamels and their collectors, October 22nd to December 20th at Galerie Cougall in Paris.
00:40:23
Speaker
Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Ben.
00:40:28
Speaker
Today's episode was edited by Julian Minerva. Support from the Magazine Antiques editorial team includes senior editor Sarah Stever-Turner, managing editor Christine Hildebrand, and editorial assistant Irvashi Lele.