St Eleonore: M.47-1904

Place(s) associated

• Limoges ⪼ Haute Vienne ⪼ France

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1904) by McClean, Frank

Dating

18th Century, Mid
Louis XV
Circa 1730 CE - 1760 CE

Note

By the end of the seventeenth century demand for Limoges enamelled tableware had declined, and in the early eighteenth century the few remaining enamellers produced mainly small items, such as snuff rasp covers, plaques for purses, and drinking cups. In contrast, the enforcement of Roman catholicism by Louis XIV ensured that there was a continuing demand for religious images, and small rectangular plaques of Christ, the Virgin Mary, or Saints formed a high proportion of the enamellers' trade. Some of these were attached to the fabric covers of religious books, and others were framed singly, or in small groups for private devotions. The three eighteenth-century plaques in the Fitzwilliam's collection are all decorated with images of Saints who were connected with the Fransiscan Order. St Eléonore (Eleanor) daughter of count Raimondo-Berengar V of Provence, and sister-in-law of St Louis, was married to Henry III of England in 1236. She was a devoted and ambitious mother, and a loyal supporter of her husband during the political troubles of the 1250s and 60s. Henry died in 1272 but it was not until 1286 that Eleonor took the veil at Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire, a daughter house of Fontevrault in France. She died at Amesbury on 24 June 1291, and was buried there. Her heart was taken to London to be buried in the church of the Fransiscans, the order which she particularly favoured, and had provided her spiritual advisers. Her acts of piety including the founding of a Dominican priory at Guildford, and benefactions to the hospital of St Katharine by the Tower, and the Cistercian nunnery of Tarrant in Dorset. Her granddaughter Beatrice, who took the veil at Amesbury shortly before she did, later became Abbess of Fontevrault. The cult of St Eléonore developed unofficially and she has not been canonized. The bright colouring contrasting with a black ground is typical of mid eighteenth-century enamels, as is the raised white decoration in the corners. The reverse of the plaque has very dark brown counter-enamel which is also characteristic of eighteenth-century enamels. The plaque was probably produced by Jean-Baptiste Nouailher I, son of Pierre Nouailher (probably the elder of two brothers with the same name), and Anne Faulte, who was baptised in the Parish of Saint-Pierre en Saint-Etienne, on 26 May 1697 and died in 1775, rather than Jean-Baptiste Nouailher II (baptised 1732-1804). When signing his work Jean-Baptiste Nouailher I dropped his first Christian name or abbreviated it to Bte or BTE, and wrote his second in full, as on the reverse of this plaque.