Two or three decades ago when speeding
through the streets of Dublin in a white van laden with building
materials I passed the Chester Beatty Library and noticed it was
hosting an exhibition of Muscovite enamels, so, instead of racing on
to the house I was supposed to be working on, I slewed into the
library's gravel drive and wedged my battered charger amongst a
smattering of shiny cars.
It turned out they were about to
broadcast a television programme about the enamels – various
technicians were dragging cables about, some presenter type was
combing his hair – everyone was too busy to mind my being there so
I examined the exhibits on display and eventually discovered a
weighty publication that described them. It was far too expensive for
me to buy so I scanned a few passages. They described how in the 13th
century the Mongols, during what was the only successful winter
invasion of Russia (they charged up the frozen rivers on horseback
giving no time for defenses to be organised), had sacked Moscow, at
the time a beacon of civilisation, and murdered so many Muscovites
that one of the techniques for enamelling, that of cloisonné -
a word I'd never seen before - was lost for ever. This last fact
intrigued me. The book explained
that despite there being an example of something very similar
to cloisonné in the main cabinet there was no example of this lost
process in the collection on display - they did exist elsewhere, but
their locations were not given. I asked an attendant where such
enamelling could be found, he had no idea, however he did say that
there was one person who was sure to know and that was the expert who
was about to be interviewed for the television show. As we spoke that
very woman was striding toward me on her way to two floodlit
armchairs. What a stroke of luck!
“Ah! Excuse me, could you tell me
where I could find an example of cloisonné?”
“What? Oh. Over there in the main
cabinet.”
“No, that's a different technique.
I'm looking for cloisonné - it's a lost technique.”
“Is it. Well look in the other
cabinets.”
“I did and there's none. It says so
here on page 247.”
After a moment of intense mutual
assessment we separated and she strode off to be questioned by
someone more civil, whose hair was not full of cement dust and who
knew how to pronounce cloisonné. And I
took off in my white van, its spinning wheels scattering gravel and
taking me forward to where I once was.
