A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

the back of the figure (such as ‘p m c r’(?); ‘o m’; ‘t v a’(?)) but their meaning is unclear. All the words are separated by strawberries and flowers, for the most part blue, but also pink, white and red (figs. 14.4-14.5). The petals are outlined with a darker line and highlighted with white. The pistils in the centre of the flowers are unpainted, leaving the gilded background visible. Stems and sepals are executed in two different greens. Some are painted with a translucent green glaze while others appear more opaque and are highlighted with bright green or white. To produce the letter-border’s stippled background the polychromer used a cog-wheel fixed to a handle, a so-called rotella , in this case with twelve to fourteen cogs, which he rolled over the gilded surface. The punching wheel was rolled in different directions to create an effect of texture and optical vibration. The border is edged by parallel lines painted in the same brown glaze as the letters and reinforced with a series of arabesques decorated with painted blue pearls whose lustre and volume are suggested by white highlights. The lining of the mantle is covered with sgraffito decoration producing the effect of a network of gilded lozenges on a matt dark blue background ( fig. 14.6). Each lozenge contains a gilded fleur-de-lis inside a quatrefoil. The azurite blue layer was painted over a black underlayer applied on top of the gold. To achieve a velvety texture, the azurite was coarsely ground, in what seems to be a protein binder. The blue sgraffito decoration of the lining is framed by a row of linked addorsed ‘C’ shapes executed in the same technique. The refinement of all these complex patterns, made by freehand scratching out, attests to the polychromer’s great ability. Finally, the blue lining is embellished with a wide gilded border decorated with painted flowers and strawberries alternating with a punched rosette motif. Each of the dots making up the 14.4 14.5 Fig. 14.4 Strawberries separating two words in the mantle’s border Fig. 14.5 Blue flower separating two words in the mantle’s border Fig. 14.6 Lining of the mantle covered with sgraffito decoration and a wide gilded border decorated with painted flowers alternating with a motif of punched rosettes Fig. 14.7 Punched rosette with six-branched star in the centre of each punch mark