Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)
Black enamel is a glass frit coloured with manganese oxide and fused in thin layers onto gold or silver - the most expensive variant of Victorian mourning jewellery and the preferred carrier ground for inscriptions.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
Black enamel is the most high-quality of the black mourning materials of the 19th century. Whereas jet, onyx and Berlin iron are materials for the outer surface, black enamel is a carrier: the black surface almost always serves to receive an inscription or a pictorial element - initials, date of death, motto, sometimes a gilded mourning anchor or a weeping willow. Black enamel is thus the material of referential mourning, of mourning directed at a specific person.
Material and process
Enamel - also fused glass - is at its core a finely ground glass frit that is coloured with metal oxides and fused onto a metal support at about 800 °C. For black, the glass frit is charged with manganese oxide (for depth of effect) and occasionally with iron oxide (for the bond). The glaze is applied in several thin layers and ground flat after the final firing.
Two techniques are used in jewellery making:
- Champlevé - the most common Victorian variant. Recesses are worked into the metal (carved, cut or etched) and filled with the glass frit. After firing, enamel and metal lie flush on a single plane.
- Émail sur basse-taille - the more refined variant. The metal is given a relief engraving and covered with transparent or lightly coloured enamel so that the relief shows through. Rarer for black enamel - here the opaque champlevé dominates.
The carrier metal in mourning jewellery is almost always gold, usually 18 or 22 carat. Silver is possible but rare - the gold colour was desired as a warm contrast to the deep black.
Black enamel in the mourning ring
The most important application is the mourning ring (see Mourning Ring (Memorial Ring)). The classic Victorian model:
- broad gold band, often 4 to 8 millimetres
- fully or partially covered with black enamel
- inscription in gold engraving or applied gold relief (initials, date of death, motto)
- inside often a second, more personal inscription (In memory of …, Not lost but gone before)
In the 18th and 19th centuries such rings were frequently issued as bequest rings by testament - the deceased stipulated who was to receive a ring bearing their date of death. Surviving pieces often carry the name and date of death of a historically documented person; the provenance can frequently be traced through wills and inventories.
Other applications
Besides rings, black enamel appears in further forms of mourning jewellery:
- Mourning brooches with a central enamel medallion and inscription
- Pendants with a hinged enamel lid concealing a hair compartment
- Cufflinks for widowers (one of the few forms of men's mourning jewellery)
- Mourning wedding rings as a replacement for the original ring after the death of a partner
In all variants the black enamel surface is the carrier of the inscription. Unlike jet cabochons, whose blackness is itself the statement, black enamel is a deliberately chosen background surface: the black field recedes so that the inscription can come forward.
Social setting
Black enamel pieces were permitted in the first phase of mourning as a matt variant (with unpolished surface); in the second phase of mourning the polished, glossy variant dominated. Social stratum: the upper middle class, lesser and higher nobility. For the poorer middle class the pieces were unaffordable - that stratum turned to French jet, vulcanite or jet.
One peculiarity: black enamel rings were passed down over generations because the inscription permanently secured the provenance. It is not unusual to find in family estates a black enamel mourning ring from the 1840s that was worn into the 20th century - as a visible family token, no longer as current mourning jewellery.
Restoration and care
Black enamel is robust against UV light and oxygen but sensitive to knocks and strong acids. Common damage patterns:
- Hairline cracks in the enamel - above all in pieces produced in several firings, stress cracks can arise between the layers. Not repairable.
- Chipping at the edges - in obliquely mounted enamel surfaces or after falls. Proper restoration requires a repeat firing, which frequently ruins the piece completely. As a rule, no restoration is carried out.
- Discolouration in the black surface - usually caused by acidic cleaners or perspiration. Clean gently with a soft cloth and water; on no account with silver polish.
Black enamel today
In modern memorial jewellery, black enamel is a technique that has become rare but remains alive. A few specialist goldsmiths continue to work with champlevé enamel and make black-enamelled rings with inscriptions or fingerprint lines to order. The technique is laborious - a single ring requires three to five firings and several days of handwork - and correspondingly expensive. For pieces intended as a long-term family token, however, black enamel remains to this day the most durable variant of the black mourning jewellery tradition.
Questions about this entry
- How is black enamel applied?
The gold or silver piece is first cut out, then furnished with recessed fields (champlevé) or engraved. The finely ground glass frit is laid into the recesses and fired at about 800 °C - usually in several layers. After firing, the surface is ground flat and polished. A well-executed black enamel surface is deep black, glassily smooth and stable over decades.
- Why was black enamel more expensive than jet?
The carrier metal - usually 18 or 22 carat gold - is the largest cost item. Added to this are the high demands on craftsmanship: the champlevé recesses must be exact, the firing is risky (cracks, bubbles, discolouration), and the inscription is usually engraved only after firing. A Victorian mourning ring in black enamel cost roughly ten times as much as a comparable jet piece.
- What is the difference between enamel and niello?
Both fill recessed fields in metal with a black mass. Enamel is fired glass, niello a fusible alloy of silver, copper, lead and sulphur. Enamel is visually glassy and smooth, niello matt and metallic. Niello is more robust against knocks, enamel more delicate but deeper in colour. Both techniques are documented in mourning rings; in the High Victorian period enamel dominated (see Niello (Black Inlay Technique)).
Further reading
- Email - Geschichte und Technik einer Kunst - Erika Speel (1998)
- Victoria and Albert Museum - Enamel Mourning Jewellery
- The Power of Adornment: Personal Mourning Jewellery - Sarah Nehama (2012)
Related entries
- Core conceptsWidow's Jewellery
Widow's jewellery is the graduated mourning jewellery worn by widows in the 19th century according to a strictly codified plan of court mourning - from deep matte black to half-mourning lilac, each phase with its own materials and its own formal language.
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Core conceptsMemento mori
Memento mori is the Christian-Stoic exhortation to be mindful of one's own death - and at the same time the iconographic soil from which European mourning jewellery of the 17th century grew.
- MaterialsJet (Gagate)
Jet - German *Gagat* - is a fossil, deep-black material formed from petrified wood which in the nineteenth century became the very epitome of Victorian mourning jewellery.
- Jewellery formsMourning Ring (Memorial Ring)
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of a deceased person, usually in the form of an inscription, an image, a lock of hair or a fingerprint.
- Techniques & craftEngraving and Inscriptions
Engraving is the oldest personalisation technique in memorial jewellery - from the Baroque memento mori ring to modern laser micro-engraving, which today inscribes initials, dates of death and even photographed handwriting into metal.
- Techniques & craftNiello (Black Inlay Technique)
Niello is an ancient jewellery-finishing technique in which engraved lines on silver or gold are filled with a black sulphur-metal alloy - the result is a deep dark line drawing on a light ground, used in memento mori jewellery and in Victorian mourning jewellery as a cheaper alternative to black enamel.
- PeriodsThe Victorian Era (1837–1901)
The Victorian era is the heyday of mourning jewellery - a period of more than sixty years in which court mourning codes, industrial mass production, new materials (jet, vulcanite, Berlin iron) and Queen Victoria's personal widowhood combined to produce a system of public and private mourning visibility without precedent in European history.
- PeriodsThe Georgian Era (1714–1837)
The Georgian era spans the reigns of the four kings George I to George IV and of William IV in Britain. In mourning jewellery it is the epoch in which sentimental jewellery was invented - sepia hair painting, the lover's eye, the miniature portrait on ivory, and the posy ring in transition to the memento mori ring.