MEDAILLON LIMOGES
ca. 1230

Limousin
Early in the twelfth century, French goldsmiths at the Benedictine Abbey of Conques in the hills of the ancient province of Rouerque began to create enamels whose jewel-like colours and rich, golden surfaces belied their fabrication from base copper. Within a generation, this technique was established in the area of the Limousin itself. The famous Carrand medallions, ca.1130, can be seen in the abbey museum of Conques.

The medallion depicts a gilded fantastic creature in a blue enamel ground. A hybrid beast with a lions head, wings of a bird and a floral tail, playing on the circular form of the roundel. The compositions with a fantastic animal recalls the tradition of Romanesque manuscript illumination.

Production
This medallion should be grouped with a number of enamelled medallions and escutcheons on coffrets that are dateable to about the mid-thirteenth century.
The medallions were created from 2 to 5 mm copper sheet in repoussé technique. Their initial rough forms were raised from the back, and finished and articulated from the front. Gravers were used to remove metal, sharpen details and create decorative patterns, apparent in incised lines of drapery patterns. Punches were used to create decorative or textual effects.
Cells were cut out to be filled with slightly damp powdered glass. After fusing the enamel in the oven, gilding was almost the last step in the fabrication.
A amalgam of mercury and gold was brushed out to the metal surfaces that were to be gilded in a oven on low heat. The gold did not adhere to the surface of the enamel. Last stadium was polishing, and the attaching with rivets to the coffret.

Coffret of Saint Louis
The collection of the Louvre holds the ‘Coffret of Saint Louis’, ca. 1235, a coffret discovered in 1853 in the abbey church of Notre-Dame du Lys, where it held four bones of Saint Louis and his hairshirt.
Twenty-five openwork medallions cover the front, sides and lid.
Eleven medallions with scenes in reserve set against lavender blue enamelled grounds, adorn the back of the coffret.