Pair of small glass églomisé plates

Plate with yellow curtains:
-Height: 15 cm
-Height (with frame): 18 cm
Width: 11.8 cm
-Width (with frame): 14.5 cm

Plate with red curtains:
-Height: 15 cm
-Height (with frame): 18 cm
Width: 11.2 cm
-Width (with frame): 14.5 cm

Comparable example:
-After Jean-Baptiste or Antoine Monnoyer, Pair of églomisé glasses, first half of the 18th century, private collection.

These two glass églomisé plaques with a black background each represent a bouquet of flowers placed on a gilded wood console and white marble top, in front of an open window recess. The consoles are placed in front of a wall with a red marbled effect. Imposing red damask curtains with gold threads, serving as a foil, frame each still life. The two seemingly similar compositions nevertheless differ in details. On the first plaque, of which the open window recess is visible to the right of the composition, the golden bouquet is placed in a basket, enthroned on a console appearing to be from the Louis XIV period, based on the top of the characteristic feet of the baluster legs. The second plate has a composition symmetrical to the first, the window recess being visible on the left. The bouquet of flowers is arranged in a glass vase, placed on a later console, from the Regency period, according to the masks at the top of the console feet. Each miniature painting is placed in a gilded, chiseled and openwork metal frame.

The glass églomisé technique:

Appearing since Roman times, the églomisé technique is a particular category of glass painting. It consists of decorating a glass plate on its worked reverse, using gilding or different colors. The outlines of the patterns are drawn with an agate pencil, then the decoration is applied. We do not fix it with heat but we protect it, with another plate of glass, a layer of varnish or a layer of tin.
The process was used numerous times in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This technique was brought back into the spotlight by Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-1786), print dealer, designer, engraver and sales expert in Paris in the 18th century. Associated with the merchant Helle, he published a catalog raisonné of Rembrandt's etchings. Glomy uses this process in particular to frame his engravings by surrounding them with a gold net, subsequently giving his name to the gold-painted glass technique.
The technique of painting under glass, or through glass should we say since the subject is seen transparently, is in itself already a huge challenge. The artist is obliged to reverse the creative process, that is to say from the foreground to the background, or even, elements of detail towards the background but the error is not authorized because it is impossible to make any correction to the subject on glass.

The pattern of the flower bouquet:

Bouquets and baskets of flowers are a recurring motif in the history of art. Already known in mosaic in Antiquity, it changed dimension in the Renaissance with the vanitas painted in the schools of the North. Allegorical works inviting us to reflect on the fragility of human life and the fatuity of human attachments, the vanitas use fruits and flowers as symbols of the passing of time. Treated naturally, they bud and die on the canvas in a mixture of bright colors, shadows and lights which are intended to be as much moral objects as plastic prowess, as evidenced in particular by the oil on copper attributed to Ambrosius Bosschaert (inv. RF 1984 150) exhibited at the Louvre. Flemish masters excelled in this pictorial genre during the Golden Age.
At the beginning of the 18th century, bouquets and baskets of flowers gradually abandoned their symbolic character in favor of their decorative quality, although the language of flowers was still used regularly in paintings. Interest in landscaped natural landscapes, such as those found in the sublime French gardens at Versailles, developed with the progress of botany. The greenhouses and winter gardens house exotic and European flowers in all seasons which are assembled in bouquets, like an extension of the gardens in the interiors. At the same time, the decorative arts fill the decorations with artificial flowers, modeled and painted from nature. These are then deployed on all supports: marquetry, table services and porcelain sculptures (Jean-Claude Duplessis, Claude Le Boitteux, Bouquet de la Dauphine, 1748, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstammlungen, inv. PE 707), miniature paintings in rare and diverse materials (mosaic, mother-of-pearl, shells) or in tapestry... They are found in particular on small precious objects such as as watches, snuff boxes, and fixed under glass such as verre églomisé.

In the second half of the 18th century, Victor Vispré, a member of the brotherhood of painters of The Hague, distinguished himself as a painter of still lifes under glass. His works, purely aesthetic, are highly appreciated in Paris. Sébastien Le Clerc, painter to the King, has two, the Marquise de Pompadour one, Augustin Blondel de Gagny also two.
These églomisé glass plates are remarkable for their compositions reminiscent of floral still lifes arranged in niches of the 17th century Northern School and their shimmering polychromy.
Like real little paintings, these two glass églomisé plates depict rich interior scenes. In a play on symmetry, a finely decorated apartment is described: sumptuous damask trimmed with trimmings frame the scene, like the most refined interiors of the time. Arranged on rich, very finely carved consoles, like the contemporary productions of the greatest carpenters, these bouquets take place in interiors typical of the Age of Enlightenment.

Bibliography:
-F. Sydney Eden, “Verre églomisé”, The Connoisseur, n° 32, June 1932.
-Rudy Eswarin, “Terminology of verre églomisé”, Journal of Glass Studies, Vol. 21, 1975.
-Jeannine Geyssant, “Glass, shine and light, fascination and charm of paintings under glass”, Sèvres. Review of the Society of Friends of the National Ceramic Museum, n°18, 2009. pp. 50–56.
-Jeannine Geyssant, Berno Heymer, “The enigma of the Vispré brothers, painters under glass in the 18th century”, L’Estampille–L’Objet d’Art, n°442, January 2009, p. 46–53.
-Paul Guth, “The whole truth about verre églomisé”, Connaissance des Arts, n° 66, August 1957, p. 28.
-W.B Honey, “Gold engraving under glass”, The Connoisseur, n° 92, December 1933.
-Julia Weber, David Babin, “Porcelain at the service of diplomacy. The exchange of gifts between Dresden and Versailles”, in Sèvres. Review of the Society of Friends of the National Ceramic Museum, n°16, 2007, pp. 51–56.