The verre églomisé technique

Appearing as early as the Roman era, the églomisé technique is a particular category of glass painting. It consists of decorating a glass plate on its worked reverse side, using gilding or different colors. The contours of the designs are drawn with an agate pencil, then the decoration is applied. It is not fixed with heat but is protected by another glass plate, a layer of varnish, or a layer of tin.
The process was used many times during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This technique was brought back to prominence by Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-1786), a print merchant, designer, engraver, and expert in sales in Paris in the 18th century. Associated with the merchant Helle, he published a catalog of Rembrandt's etchings. Glomy notably used this process to frame his engravings by surrounding them with a gold border, which later gave its name to the technique of gold-painted glass.
The technique of painting under glass, or rather "through the glass," should be said, since the subject is seen in transparency, is in itself already a huge challenge. The artist is forced to reverse the creative process, that is, from the foreground to the background, or even from detailed elements to the background. But mistakes are not allowed, as it is impossible to make any corrections to the subject painted on glass.

The Motif of the Flower Bouquet

Bouquets and baskets of flowers are a recurring motif throughout art history. Already represented in mosaics during Antiquity, this theme took on renewed significance during the Renaissance, particularly in the vanitas paintings of the Northern schools. These allegorical works, inviting reflection on the fragility of human life and the futility of human attachments, used fruits and flowers as symbols of time’s passing. Painted with naturalistic precision, they bloom and wither on canvas in a vibrant interplay of colors, light, and shadow, serving both as moral objects and demonstrations of artistic mastery—as illustrated by the oil on copper attributed to Ambrosius Bosschaert (inv. RF 1984 150), on display at the Louvre. Flemish masters excelled in this genre during the Golden Age.

In the early 18th century, bouquets and flower baskets gradually lost their symbolic dimension in favor of their decorative appeal. Nevertheless, the language of flowers remained a common visual code in paintings. Interest in arranged natural landscapes—such as the jardins à la française of Versailles— paralleled with advances in botany. Greenhouses and orangeries allowed exotic and European flowers to bloom year-round, which were then gathered into bouquets, that brought the garden indoors.

At the same time, the decorative arts became embraced artificial flowers, molded and painted from life. These floral designs appeared across a wide range of medium: marquetry, tableware, porcelain sculptures (e.g., Jean-Claude Duplessis and Claude Le Boitteux, Bouquet de la Dauphine, 1748, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, inv. PE 707), miniature paintings made from rare and diverse materials (mosaic, mother-of-pearl, shells), and tapestry. They also adorned precious small objects such as watches, snuffboxes, and fixé sous verre paintings like the verre églomisé pieces.

In the second half of the 18th century, Victor Vispré, a member of The Hague painters' guild, gained recognition for his still life paintings under glass. His works, purely decorative, were in highly sought after Paris. Sébastien Le Clerc, painter to the King, owned two; the Marquise de Pompadour had one; and Augustin Blondel de Gagny owned two as well.

These verre églomisé plates are particularly remarkable for their compositions, which recall 17th-century Northern still lifes arranged in niches, as well as for their shimmering colors.

Like real little paintings, these two verre eglomisé plates depict rich interior scenes. In a play of symmetry, a finely decorated apartment is described : sumptuous damasks trimmed with passementeries frame the scene, reminiscent of the most refined interiors of the time. Arranged on richly carved console tables, reflecting the contemporary productions of the greatest joiners, these bouquets take place in interiors typical of the Age of Enlightenment.