Wednesday 9 April 2014

Journées Européennes des Métiers d'Art : doreur-encadreur

Meet Marlène Voisin, the gilding and framing expert owner of Art de la Feuille d'Or ('gold leaf art'), whose shop front I was showing you yesterday. She restores and gilds wood and here are the tools of her trade. In the last photo, she is using a marten brush to apply the gold leaf to a frame that has been painted with clay first. It was absolutely fascinating to watch, in the first photo you can see how the gold leaf can be given a matte, semi-matte or very shiny, glossy and reflective finish!

VDP a le plaisir de vous présenter Marlène Voisin, doreur-encadreur de l'Art de la Feuille d'Or dont je vous montrais le magasin hier. Elle restaure et dore le bois. Sur la dernière photo, elle applique la feuille d'or à l'aide d'un pinceau en martre sur un cadre au préalable enduit d'argile. C'était absolument fascinant à observer, sur la première photo, on distingue nettement les différents finis, allant du mat au très brillant, presque comme un miroir !

21 comments:

William Kendall said...

That is pure craftmanship. She does amazing work!

Revrunner said...

You would hate to screw up with a handful of gold leaf. :-)

Sunnybrook Farm said...

Those are wonderful frames, I can only afford the gold spray painted ones from Mexico, no wait now they are from China. lol

Sylvia K said...

A talented, beautiful lady she is indeed! Superb!!

Jack said...

She seems young to have learned that skill well enough to be hired for such important work.

Kate said...

A young woman with creative interests and artistic talents!!

Randy said...

I wonder if it's a stressful job.

Olivier said...

un vrai travail d'artiste, vraiment sympa ce reportage

Bergson said...

travaillé l'or un métier de riche ?

LOLfromPasa said...

A steady hand required here, I expect. Interesting post!

Halcyon said...

Wow! Really impressive work.

Stuart said...

It's beautiful work. I can't imagine what the cost would be for gold leaf and the time of a skilled artisan. And one ought to have something worthy to put this around it. Out of my league.

Lowell said...

Several things: Marlene is a very beautiful woman. I've never heard of painting with clay. She does great work and is very talented.

Merci for this most interesting post!

Wayne said...

I have never seen this process in person, it's something I'd like to experience. It amazes me they can (and have been) make the leaf so thin to begin with. As other have commented, she is very pretty.

Tanya Breese said...

it's nice to see work still done by hand!

Sharon said...

This is new to me, I've never seen how this is done before. How interesting.

RedPat said...

It's like magic!

VP said...

I have already seen this kind of work done by others, but Marlène is also a beautiful lady!

Karl said...

Ich kenne diese Arbeit sehr gut, du hast es sehr gut fotografiert.

Thérèse said...

Superbe... j'ai eu la chance de reparer un ou deux cadres de cette facon mais en amateur a la maison.

Dina said...

A very special profession. And you caught it well with the camera.

Our Italian Jewish museum in Jerusalem offered an evening about how they restore the old wooden treasures from Italy. Fascinating to watch. The two women were trained in Italy, of course. They passed around a little piece of gold leaf for us to get the feel of it. I remember it being hard to peel off my finger.