Art & Artist

Ermile Magradze, one of the leading art historians in Georgia has dedicated years of his life to revive the lost technique of cell enamel or «Georgian Cloisonné» successfully. «The Revival of Lost Technologies» is a project initiated by the Georgian National Museum with financial assistance from UNESCO.
The Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi has recently awarded Ermile Magradze a PhD in Science for his paper on Byzantine Cloisonné.

The Georgian Cloisonné Enamel Technique

Ermile Magradze recreated an entire workshop just as it would have existed in the Middle Ages. He uses reproduced tools and equipment of those times (like the «Colchian lid» shown below) and applies the archaic techniques of boiling glass and processing metal.

Rock crystals and gem stones are formulated with oxides and salts, smelted at 800–820 °C , cooled down, powdered, and then filled into the cells of the prepared metalwork. After another smelting process this step is repeated a minimum of two times to gain unmatched depth and sparkling light reflexes.

Colchian Lid Photo: Mukhran Makharadze

«Colchian Lid» used in the Georgian Cloisonné Enamel Technique

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