Concerning a Questionable Identification of Mediaeval Catalan Champlevéa Enamels

Abstract

So potentially harmful, in the history of art, may be the consequences of an ascription, insufficiently warranted, to some determinate locality of a group of objects presumed to have in common features more or less characteristic, that, before accepting any fresh attribution, it behooves us to scrutinize most carefully both the supposed evidence cited for the localization claimed and the composition of the alleged group. A notable example of the mischief occasionable by an insufficiently critical acceptance of a hypothesis based upon inadequate evidence and supported by testimony sometimes distorted to fit a theory, is the case of copper champlevé enamels of the so-called “Limousin” types. In that case errors became cumulative, in part as a result of chains of ascriptions, some of whose links magnified almost imperceptibly fallacies embodied in their immediate predecessors, in part owing to the losses of records of provenances, retention of which often was regarded as needless in view of the presumption that the locality of origin of the enamels involved was Limousin.