Jewelry made from precious metals decorated with
enamel is in demand again. Enameling in Rus’ has been
known since the 13 – 14th centuries. The most brilliant master enameller C. P. Fabergé, who became famous for his series of exquisite Easter eggs, is still considered to have
worked at the juncture of the 19th and 20th centuries. The articles made by this great master are recognized standards in
this field. And even though the world market places a strong
emphasis on so-called cold enamels, hot enameling and
painting on metal will always be in demand. Fabergé‘s palette contained up to 130 basic colors, including compositions with opacification and opalescence. This type of enamel with different degrees of opacification is in great demand by jewelers as a coating forming a background for
painting on metal. In the USSR such enamels were made at
the Druzhnaya Gorka Works (DGW) in Leningrad Oblast.
Unfortunately, DGW was closed in 1990 and the prescriptions for the mixes were lost.
Attempts to obtain similar enamels have been made repeatedly in different countries. But it was found to be impossible to use the newly developed compositions under the
conditions of an ordinary jeweler’s workshop because of the
presence of at least one of the indictors presented below:
– high deposition temperature for enamel on the substrate (above 800 °C); this results in deformation of the complicated piece of jewelry because of solder spreading;
– absence of a strong bond between the decorative
enamel and substrate because of the large difference between