Cloisonné (French: [klwazɔne]) is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place or separated by metal strips or wire, occasionally of gold. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, but inlays of cut gemstones, glass and other materials were also used during older periods; cloisonné enamel very probably began as an easier imitation of cloisonné work using gems. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold as wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colors. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln. If gemstones or colored glass are used, the pieces need to be cut or ground into the shape of each cloison.Cloisonné first developed in the jewellery of the ancient Near East, and the earliest enamel all used the cloisonné technique, placing the enamel within small cells with gold walls. This had been used as a technique to hold pieces of stone and gems tightly in place since the 3rd millennium BC, for example in Mesopotamia, and then Egypt. Enamel seems likely to have developed as a cheaper method of achieving similar results.
The earliest undisputed objects known to use enamel are a group of Mycenaean rings from Graves in Cyprus, dated to the 12th century BC, and using very thin wire.
In the jewellery of ancient Egypt, including the pectoral jewels of the pharaohs, thicker strips form the cloisons, which remain small. In Egypt gemstones and enamel-like materials sometimes called "glass-paste" were both used. Although Egyptian pieces, including jewellery from the Tomb of Tutankhamun of c. 1325 BC, are frequently described as using "enamel", many scholars doubt the glass paste was sufficiently melted to be properly so described, and use terms such as "glass-paste". It seems possible that in Egyptian conditions the melting point of the glass and gold were too close to make enamel a viable technique. Nonetheless, there appear to be a few actual examples of enamel, perhaps from the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (beginning 1070 BC) on. But it remained rare in both Egypt and Greece.
The technique appears in the Koban culture of the northern and central Caucasus, and was perhaps carried by the Sarmatians to the ancient Celts, but they essentially used the champlevé technique. Subsequently, enamel was just one of the fillings used for the small, thick-walled cloisons of the Late Antique and Migration Period style. At Sutton Hoo, the Anglo-Saxon pieces mostly use garnet cloisonné, but this is sometimes combined with enamel in the same piece. A problem that adds to the uncertainty over early enamel is artefacts (typically excavated) that appear to have been prepared for enamel, but have now lost whatever filled the cloisons. This occurs in several different regions, from ancient Egypt to Anglo-Saxon England. Once enamel becomes more common, as in medieval Europe after about 1000, the assumption that enamel was originally used becomes safer.
Mind your business
Mind your never-shut, Quonset hut business
My craft is exploding
It's like I'm making cloisonné
Choking on my dust
With my three blind cats
You have a friend in law enforcement
Don't go calling law enforcement
Business
Mind your business
Got too busy explaining
Now it's just raining pain
Pain in the form of a rain drop
Yes, a rain drop made of pain
Tell 'em the story, rain drop
"I don't want to tell 'em, mister!"
Tell 'em the story, rain drop
"I don't want to tell 'em!"
Keep your voice down
Keep your voice down
Keep your window-shaking, godforsaken voice down
I'm sick of this beeswax
I'm sick of these second-story sleestaks
Breathing on my dice
Giving me back rubs
When I'm deep in concentration
You start getting no conversatin'
Sleestak
What's a sleestak?
That's your heart attack
Towel rack
Fallback
You got no doctors
All your doctors have gone home
What's a sleestak?
What's a sleestak?
You have a friend in law enforcement
Don't go calling law enforcement
Cloisonné
