The back glass painter works in reverse order. The details come first and then various layers of paint, translucent or not, with different media. These layers can be etched, especially when gold leaf or silver leaf is used.
The last layer can consist entirely or partly of sheet metal, which provides both protection for the material and brings shine and depth to the painting.
The first examples of this type of decoration are on gravestones from the Roman period in Italy ( 4 ° century BC ).
In a Renaissance handbook for craftsmen dated 1437 it appears that this technique was still used at that time in Italy. The glass plates are covered with dark colours based on oil.
When shellac (resin obtained from a female insect and dissolved in alcohol) was imported here in the 17th century from the Far East, it became from then on a widespread practice to mix the paint with this varnish.
When, towards the end of the 17th century, the monopoly of the Italian glass artists in Murano was broken, Italian glassblowers started to work for other producers all over Europe and the technique spread.
Around 1700, silver-plated sheets of glass about two metres long were available as mirrors, and these were decorated with eglomisé rims.
The technique then went out of fashion for decades, only to flourish again towards the end of the 18th century.
The French art dealer Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-1786) specialised in this type of art in Paris. He often had commissions for Louis XV and XVI by which the technique was revived and later even named after him.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, eglomisé was widely used in Belgium and France in advertising panels for shop fronts. We can still find several examples of this in the streetscape of eclectic facades from the Belle Epoque era.
During the Art Deco period and modernism there was a new revival and refinement with names like Floris Jespers, Kandinsky and members of 'Der Blaue Reiter'...but after the Second World War the use fell into oblivion.
The technique is very traditional and requires not only the making of paints yourself, the application of metal foils that are etched and the use of different solvents to allow the different layers to flow together or not depending the desired effect.