Enamelling Artisan

Grand Feu enamelling is an art calling for great patience and accuracy and the dial is the equivalent of a painter's canvas, except that the tiny space available for artistic expression measures just a few centimetres in diameter. The raw material is fascinating, involving sheets of glass coloured with metal oxides, either translucent like barley sugar or opaque like mosaic.

These are then crushed to a fine sand and the resulting coloured glass powder is called enamel. However, this material must be mixed with pine oil before serving as paint. While the ritual varies according to motifs or colours, it always begins with the Artisan coating the topside and underside of the dial with a first layer of white enamel, before the first high-temperature firing. He repeats this operation several times, in order to obtain an entirely white base.