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Filling in the Gaps: Lost History & Global Forces

by Connor Robeck


How does a renaissance-era European enamel triptych (Fig. 1) come to be in the possession of a small east coast Catholic university? It is an intriguing question and an aggravating one due to having few easy answers. The correct answer, the only definite answer that can be given, is that it was donated to the Catholic University of America by Fr. Arthur T. Connolly, in one of three boxes sent to the university in June of 1920. This is where the trail goes cold, as Connolly neglected to document when, where and how he acquired the piece. But this dead end is hardly satisfactory to someone with an interest in the object. We can’t know for certain how the triptych came to be in Connolly’s possession, but there are things we can be pretty sure of as long as we look at the facts. By paying close attention to the object and the culture that produced it we can understand a little more of its history and how it fits into the world of renaissance art and commerce.

The piece is dated to 1547 and is almost certainly French. Early university archival documents say as much, though the current object file doesn’t list a country of origin, presumably due to a lack of hard evidence. However, the subject matter is the Burghers of Calais, a story from the Hundred Year’s war recorded and popularized by French historians like Jean Le Bel and Froissart. According to Froissart’s account[1], after the surrender of Calais to the English King Edward III, the city was ordered to offer up six men to suffer for the city’s resistance. Six of the richest men in the city nobly volunteered, surrendering with bare feet and a rope halter around their necks. The king intended to have them executed, but his queen, Philippa of Hainault, interceded on their behalf. Although the book itself was widely available throughout Europe, this particular anecdote wasn’t widely depicted in the arts. The narrative isn’t important to the overall history of the war, only as a symbol of French virtue and pride, and would have little interest to a non-French patron.

The medium itself also helps us to pinpoint the object’s geographic origin, and the type of patron it was likely to have. Although enamel itself was a widely used medium dating back to the medieval period, this triptych utilizes the technique of enamel painting, where pigments are applied with brushes and various other tools to the enamel before firing. This technique was far more sophisticated than earlier techniques that relied on metal frames to create coherent images. This technique offered a greater range of color variation, more nuanced lines, and even the ability to create limited shading and modeling. Though the precise origin of the technique is unknown, by the 1500s it was almost exclusively practiced in France, particularly in the city of Limoges. The city’s near-monopoly was in fact backed by French law, as Louis XI limited membership in the enamel painter’s guild to members of certain families, who all hailed from Limoges.[2] Some Limoges native artists traveled to work in courts or other parts of France, but Limoges remained the center of production. While scattered examples of the technique have been identified from the Netherlands, these are in the extreme minority. The medium of painted enamel was only able to become successful due to a rise in an affluent upper-middle-class in France[3]. Enamel becomes quite fragile when panels are large, so it is less than ideal for large public pieces or monumental displays. Consequently, church and royal patrons had little use for the medium. The Connolly triptych, like many renaissance enamels, was almost certainly intended as a personal meditative object for a single wealthy patron.

Despite the extremely localized nature of French enamels, they were still a product of the renaissance world’s increasing connectivity and mobility. Limoges was only able to achieve its prolific artistic output because of its connection to European trade and material culture. Limoges had been a trade center since the Merovingian dynasty, owing to its proximity to trade and pilgrimage routes.[4] A piece like the Connolly triptych would have been made with Spanish copper that arrived via Santiago de Compostela’s pilgrimage route which also brought Limoges an audience for enamel triptychs, which had the advantage of being highly mobile.[5] While the Connolly triptych, with its French historical subject, was probably commissioned by a French patron, the presence of religious framing material and the triptych form itself suggest that it may have been adapted from a format developed for religious triptychs made for pilgrims.

Enamellers were seen, even more than other artists, as craftsmen first and foremost. Few renaissance enamels are original in composition, instead mostly copying available material[6]. The medium of enamel during the renaissance is tightly interwoven with the development of printmaking traditions. Many early French enamellers were trained as illustrators of illuminated manuscripts before the printing press rendered them obsolete. Early French painted enamels draw primarily on traditional manuscripts for their subjects, copying scenes from illuminated bibles. The Connolly triptych probably borrows its composition from one of the many illuminated copies of Froissart’s Chronicles, at least one 14th century copy of which includes a full illustration of the burghers of Calais[7]. (Fig. 2) Eventually, however, print overtook the subjects of enameling as well, with an ever-increasing number of enamels being directly after the prints distributed throughout France. Because of their relative longevity, we can study enamels as a functional record of renaissance print art and its distribution. Because we can pinpoint the production of these enamels to a highly specific area, we can see exactly what kinds of prints were in circulation in central France during the 16th century.

By 1547, by which point the majority of Limoges enamellers had shifted to a grisaille style (Fig. 3) to better emulate the look of printmakers like Durer and engravers like Bernard Salomon[8]. The Connolly piece, in contrast, maintains a manuscript-inspired polychrome style that was by this point largely out of fashion. The medieval influences and distinctively French subject matter stand out as having a distinct lack of the multicultural influences common to other enamels from this time. The narrative of the Burghers of Calais is one of French valor in the face of foreign incursion. We might well read the Connolly triptych as a conscious reaction to the grisaille enamels, and the departure from tradition that they represented. The composition doubles down on medieval trappings like the brilliant jewel tones and golden details, which had been abandoned by many enamellers. The triptych seems to refute the modern and foreign sensibilities of the grisaille enamels, returning to an older style less influenced by cosmopolitan cultural exchange, and rooted in the illustrative practices that were influential during the early French Renaissance in Limoges.

Despite this intentional appeal to older traditions and its nationalistic overtones, this work is not above borrowing from the stylistic innovations of the renaissance. For all that the subject and style are rooted in medieval manuscripts, the panels themselves are clearly influenced by the concerns of the Northern Renaissance. The figures are modeled by scraping away at the greyish enamel flesh tone with a needle[9] a technique refined in grisaille enamels to better represent the kind of anatomy found in renaissance prints. Seeing this attention to nature and the body in this work suggests that the artist was well aware of his contemporaries and their renaissance attention to anatomy. Clearly, the artist valued the naturalism and humanism that came to Limoges by way of German, Dutch and Italian prints. Similarly, the enameller takes great care to represent the materials, particularly the textiles, with great sophistication. The folds, color, pattern, texture, and weave of the fabric are given careful attention. (Fig. 4) The armor and weapons are similarly given additional points of brightness to imply metallic reflection. (Fig.5) This attention to material culture is similarly key to the Northern Renaissance, particularly for trade hubs like Limoges. Limoges had at the very least a robust metalworking industry, and many enamellers would have had close ties to local metalworkers, who would have supplied their plates and frames. Being positioned in a position of trade with Germany and Spain[10] would have made Limoges an excellent place to study a wide range of materials, and this no doubt influenced the attention to detail in enamels like the Connolly triptych.

Between the subject matter and the techniques, therefore, we can say with a reasonable measure of confidence that this object was made in France, probably Limoges, in 1547. Of course, the object is today quite far from its origin. How can we account for this? What happened to the triptych between 1547 and 1920? The answer to that, surprisingly enough, is probably nothing. The majority of painted enamels were meant for personal use by wealthy patrons, and the Connolly triptych, given its meditational format and small scale, was probably no exception. After the 16th century, there was little production and little demand for painted enamel, and most remained in the possession of the family that commissioned them. We know from art market records that there were very few sales of enamels until the mid-1800s. Even then, the Connolly triptych probably wasn’t sold at auction. The majority of enamels sold at auction during the 1800s went through contemporary restoration, including the panels being transferred to new metal frames[11]. The Connolly piece, in contrast, is set in a wooden frame of poor condition, and while it may or may not be original, it was certainly not retrofitted by a professional auction house. We know for certain that Connolly traveled to Europe several times[12]. So in all likelihood, Connolly acquired the triptych while on a trip to France, probably from the heirs of the original patron, or someone who acquired it from them locally.

The tragedy of history is that it is full of holes. There is so much we do not and cannot know. There was a craftsman who made an enamel triptych in 1547. There was a man who bought it. And in 1920 a scholarly priest donated it to its current home. The other facts are consigned to obscurity. The triumph of history is that it gives us the big picture. We might be missing puzzle pieces, but we have the puzzle. The world of the Renaissance is vast and interconnected, with social, philosophical, and economic concerns molding the art and culture across Europe and beyond. CUA’s enamel triptych doesn’t exist in a vacuum but as one of many creative endeavors shaped by international forces. It is through this lens, the understanding of the renaissance as a cosmopolitan exchange of ideas and material, that we can come to something approaching an understanding of objects as anonymous as the Connolly triptych. As historians, we have to work in two opposing directions. We study the objects to understand the world, and we study the world to understand the objects.


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Figure 1. Unknown, Untitled (Enameled Triptych) (1547) painted enamel and copper on wood, Catholic University of America, District of Columbia, U.S



Figure 2. Unknown, Illustrated Chronicles of Jean Froissart, Bk 1 & 2 (14th (Illustration from folio 164r) (14th Century) ink and pigment on vellum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.


Figure 3. Martin Didier Pape, Triptych with Scenes from the Life of St. John the Baptist (16th Century) Enamel on Copper, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, U.S.


Figure 4. Unknown, Untitled (Enameled Triptych – Detail from center panel) (1547) painted enamel and copper on wood, Catholic University of America, District of Columbia, U.S


Figure 5. Unknown, Untitled (Enameled Triptych – Detail from left wing) (1547) painted enamel and copper on wood, Catholic University of America, District of Columbia, U.S


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Works Cited:

Caroselli, Susan L. The Painted Enamels of Limoges. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.

Distelberger, Rudolf, Alison Luchs, Philippe Verdier, Timothy H. Wilson, Daphne S. Barbour, Shelly G. Sturman, & Pamela B. Vandiver. Western Decorative Arts, Part I. District of Columbia: National Gallery of Art, 1993.

Froissart, Jean. The Chronicles of Froissart. Translated by John Bourchier. England: Macmillan and Co. Limited; The Macmillan Company, 1904.

Froissart, Jean. Illustrated Chronicles of Jean Froissart, Bk 1 & 2. From Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Fr. 2663, Folio 164r. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60005702/f329.item (Accessed April 4, 2022)

Le Bel, Jean. The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel. Translated by Nigel Bryant. Woodbridge, England: Boydell & Brewer Limited; The Boydell Press, 2011

Tait, H.. "enamelwork." Encyclopedia Britannica, March 7, 2016. https://www.britannica.com/art/enamelwork. (Accessed April 4, 2022)

MacDonald, Shane. “The Archivist’s Nook: A Patron “Saint” – The Bookish Legacy of Msgr. Arthur Connolly” The Catholic University of America, University Libraries (blog). March 9, 2022. (Accessed April 4, 2022). https://www.lib.cua.edu/wordpress/newsevents/16463/



__________________________________________________________________________________ [1] Jean Froissart. The Chronicles of Froissart. Translated by John Bourchier. (England: Macmillan and Co. Limited; The Macmillan Company, 1904), 114-116 [2] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993), 23. [3] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993), 23-28 [4] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, 15 [5] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, 18 [6] Rudolf Distelberger, et al., Western Decorative Arts, Part I. (District of Columbia: National Gallery of Art, 1993), 82 [7] Jean Froissart, Illustrated Chronicles of Jean Froissart, Bk 1 & 2. (Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Ms. Fr. 2663), Folio 164r. [8] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, 27-28 [9] Rudolf Distelberger, et al., Western Decorative Arts, Part I. (District of Columbia: National Gallery of Art, 1993), 83 [10] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, 15, 83 [11] Susan L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, 37 [12] Shane MacDonald. “The Archivist’s Nook: A Patron “Saint” – The Bookish Legacy of Msgr. Arthur Connolly” The Catholic University of America, University Libraries (blog). March 9, 2022 https://www.lib.cua.edu/wordpress/newsevents/16463/

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