Enamel techniques implemented in decorative arts and jewellery to decorate all kinds of art metal items comprise a peculiar page in the history of Russian jewelry art. All kind of caskets, snuff boxes and cigarette cases, tea sets and other items ornamented with enamel turned into treasures, and the artisans that created these masterpieces received worldwide recognition.

Artistic enamel is an amazing type of decorative art. For centuries, enamelling has been of genuine interest to collectors. After all, the brightness of colours, reminiscent of precious stones, does not fade with time. There are more than a dozen different enamel techniques. You can familiarize yourself with them by the example of the exhibits presented in the sections of the museum's collection “Western European Enamel” and “Russian Enamel”.

Filigree enamel – the essence of this technique is in use of the entwined metal wire that is soldered along the contour of a pattern applied to the surface of the object, thus forming frames of the pattern details. The certain cells are formed, in which color enamel is placed. Filigree enamel is never polished, so as not to damage the pattern made of scanned wire.

Cloisonné enamel – in this technique, the contour of the drawing is primarily scratched, engraved or cut out on the item surface. Then, thin metal strips placed edgeways are soldered along this contour, thereby creating the pattern frames, dividing them by color. Each cell is filled with the definite color to the top of partitions and then baked in furnace. After that, the enamel is ground and polished so that the enamel surface and the partitions’ edges are on the same plane.

Champlevé enamel – this technique requires a sufficient thickness of an item, since the image is applied by means of grooves (notches) on the object surface. The grooves form a pattern outline and the cells, which are filled with enamel, are baked. When this technique is applied, the drawing is deepened into the object surface.

Guilloche enamel – is a variant of the engraving (carving) enamel technique. In this case, engraving is not made manually, by using a special engine-turning machine that decorates metal surface with repeating geometric patterns: waves, rays, circles, etc. This technique supposes application of transparent colour enamels only, for the background with the pattern applied on, be visible through the enamel layer.

Plique-a-jour enamel – this technique is actually a kind of cloisonné enamel, but without metal base. The technique got its name because of its resemblance to stained glass, since coloured enamel transmits light. In this technique, coloured transparent enamel is used to fill openwork pattern, which is pre-cut on the metal base of the item. 

A themed album featuring items from the museum's collection decorated with a variety of enamel techniques is posted in the Photo Gallery.