This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...to employ whatever process comes conveniently to his hand. Unless the results are incongruous no objection can be taken to his use of a multiplicity of methods; and then all that the objector can say is that he has failed in artistic discretion. XV. "PLIQUE A JOUR." Translucent enamel reaches the furthest possible point of translucency in what is known as "plique a jour," which might almost be described as the addition, not so much of glass to metal as of metal to glass. It may be either cloisonnd or champleve. In the latter case it is simply a fret of metal in which the pierced parts are glazed with enamel. In either case the metal cells have no bottom, and the light shines, as it were, through stained glass in miniature, which, in fact, it is. Enamel of this description is a sort of window work, in which, supposing it to be cloisonne filigree of wire takes the place of the lead glazing in mediaeval glass, or, supposing it to be champleve, fretted gold or silver takes the place of the pierced plaster-work into which in Eastern architecture the little bits of coloured glass were stuck. In the fifteenth century cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum illustrated overleaf (77) a band of more or less scroll-like "plique a jour " ornament is broken By two diminutive three-light Gothic windows glazed in enamel. "Plique a jour " has its equivalent also in pottery. There is a form of Chinese porcelain and of porcelainlike Persian earthenware in which the clay, whilst in a half-dry condition, is pierced with pattern, usually more or less geometric; the glaze clogs the perforations, and when fused fills them in with a stopping of translucent glass, which gleams slightly greenish against the white of the denser ware. As the incis...