Wire mail

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Wire enamel (also called Filigranemail) is a hardly used variety of Cloisonné (also called real enamel), an early enamel technology from China. In the case of wire enamel, the cells of the webs forming the motif in which the enamel powder is melted consist of upright flat wires, round wires, corded or twisted wires. The wires can be laid on, soldered on or fired into a pre-fired, thin melting surface. Unlike the enamel cloisonné, the wires and the glass mass are not overground, but the webs are left elevated. Therefore, in the past, only gold or silver wires were used. These methods remained alive in Eastern European folk art until the 17th century.

Early wire enamel works originated in the Orient and in particular in the 12th century BC on Crete, in Kouklia on Cyprus and in Eastern Greece. The next high point was enamel art in the Celtic art of the 1st to 3rd century. The enamel techniques of Byzantine art developed to completion, which allowed for the first time figurative representations, became a model for the enamel art of the European Middle Ages until the Ottonian period. The centers of enamel art were Limoges and the Rhine-Maas area in the 12th century. In the 14th century, for example, the slices of the cup jacket and the Corvinus cups were made in this technique. The enamel tradition was continued, even with new techniques, until the Florentine Medicis, who commissioned European goldsmiths with enamel work in the Renaissance, and until August the Strong in Dresden.

Literature
Glyn Daniel (ed.): Lübbes Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-7857-0236-1.

Individual evidence

Artistic technique
Email art
Wire product