opaque enamel

First, one must make the material, cakes of opaque enamel called smalti.

They are pictures constructed out of minuscule bits of opaque enamel, up to 5,000 per square inch.

The added cylinders use opaque enamel, except for the red on the Tudor roses, which is translucent rouge clair, of a similar composition to the original reds.

The jewel is a rare medieval example of the then recently developed and fashionable white opaque enamel used in en ronde bosse to almost totally encase an underlying gold form.

Copper or bronze bases were normally used, which were soft and easy to work, as well as relatively cheap, but as they discoloured in heat opaque enamels needed to be used.

It differs from the basse-taille technique, which succeeded it in the highest quality Gothic work, in that the bottoms of the recesses for the enamel are rough, and so only opaque enamel colours are used.

The inside of the casket is white, the only colour of opaque enamel in the original work, used only for a few highlights like the tiny area of the host held by Christ on the inside of the cover.

It became the cradle of French faience by importing Italian potters to recreate the plates and small figures of Emilian centers like Faenza, hence the French term for the porous clay paste covered with an opaque enamel and decorated before firing.

The technique can be used with both translucent and opaque enamel, but more commonly the later; translucent enamel is mostly found on reliefs using ronde bosse, such as a plaque with the Entombment of Christ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.