Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

A late 19th century gold and enamel bracelet, French, designed as a graduated series of circular enamel plaques, painted en grisaille with polychrome highlights and depicting theatrical profiles in costume, each within an intwined foliate gold surround with rose-cut ruby highlights, six enamels initialled ‘MP’, two signed ‘M. Puisoye’, French assay marks and maker’s mark ‘EM’, length 17cm. £4,000-£6,000

Jewels set with painted enamel plaques, inspired by the 16th century enamels of Limoges, became extremely fashionable in France during the second half of the nineteenth century. According to Vever, circular enamel plaques, such as those in this bracelet, were inspired by Renaissance hat-badges, or enseignes, often decorated with the wearer’s portrait, monogram, patron saint or other mythological or Biblical image. Similar circular ‘Limoges' enamel portraits are illustrated in the Parisian jewellers' pattern book, Le Bijou, from 1884.

The Limoges technique is a form of painted enamel, often executed en grisaille, as here, on a blue or black ground. The effect is formed from layers built up through repeated firings until the desired shades are achieved and the polychrome highlights are added.

The miniature painter and enamelist of this lot, Marie Puisoye (1855-1942), was a student of the great Claudius Popelin and worked with him from 1881 onwards. Popelin, a close friend and rumoured lover of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, is celebrated as having revived the 'Limoges' technique during the nineteenth century and is famed for his enamels in the Renaissance taste. Popelin’s enthusiasm for the technique led him to publish a history of enamelling, entitled ‘L'Émail des peintres’, that inspired many jewellers to learn the art of enamelling, notably Paul Grandhomme.

Popelin and his workshop are known to have collaborated in particular with Lucien Falize and Henri Vever. In 1893 Falize published his essay, ‘Claudius Popelin et la renaissance des émaux peints’, that celebrates the success of his friend within the circle of Parisian enamel painters.

The workmanship and naturalistic design of this bracelet is indicative of Lucien Falize and his firm. For a similar chased gold bracelet and chased gold parure by Lucien Falize, both with painted enamels by Paul Grandhomme, see Vever, Henri, 'French Jewellery of the 19th Century', (trans. Purcell, Katherine), London, 2001, pp. 956 and 989.