Dieppe

 

This Diepper work was probably moved to the later oval frame with red velvet background in the 19th century, presumably because the original ivory box was broken and the relief damaged. Nevertheless, it was very important to a contemporary to preserve the remaining work of art for himself and or posterity.  The predominant form of Diepper motifs used was the circular form in a manufactured ivory box. Therefore, the aim was to incorporate the relief as faithfully as possible into a round box of the time and to add at least part of the broken rigging in such a way that the damage of the time is no longer visible and the work appears to be complete. The result of the restoration clearly shows how differently colour and form have altered the motif. While the works of G. Stephany and J. Dresch were assembled in a kind of building block principle (piece to piece), most Diepper carvers concentrated on producing incredibly thin ivory slices from which they then carved a quite spatial scene almost to the limit of what was possible with the material. In the present case, the whole motif was worked from one piece. Gluing as G. Stephany had done is not necessary with this other holistic method (one piece) of production. In some examples where the possibilities of the material and the production technique were exceeded, even the Diepper masters resorted to a mixed method of the predominant one piece method and additions which simply could not be made from one piece were then completed by gluing (piece to piece). Both methods were used for decades. In Dieppe and other carving centres, the piece to piece method (construction from individual parts) had been known for a long time. The so-called Hessian modular principle (piece to piece), which was predominantly used by German, Swiss, Austrian, Belgian, Dutch but also Italian and other carvers, contrasts with the centuries-old tradition of the French masters from Dieppe, who produced these medallions and other works of art as far as possible from a single piece. Nevertheless, the Dieppe masters also used this other method of production. Presumably, the pressure to keep up with the extreme fineness was the decisive criterion here. Whereas with piece-to-piece it was possible for something to break and gluing errors to be corrected, in the one-piece process the work as such is lost if it breaks or an error is made. Only parts can still be used in a smaller version, e.g. as a ring or similar. In order to keep the restoration as authentic as possible, we searched the medallion for small glass splinters or foil remnants that were still present in very small particles on the residual adhesive of the relief. In this way, glass could be used as a background and the colour could finally be determined true to the original. This is probably what the original micro-picture looked like about 250 years ago.

To show the virtuosity of the Diepper masters, here are several illustrations of the weight of such a work of art (1.4 g.) the fineness cf. comparison of needle point to the perforations of the ivory and the thickness/thickness of the ivory slices with 0.3 mm.