Antique brooch. Painting on hot enamel (enamel). Russian Empire. 19th century “Enamel” is translated from Greek as a shiny, light stone. The technique of painting hot enamel has been known for a very long time, since the times of Ancient Greece. It appeared on the territory of Rus' around the 10th century, coming to us from Byzantium. Orthodox art often turned to this technique to create Orthodox works of art. You can remember the temple in Suzdal, the church erected there was inlaid with enamel and gold.nn Enamel - is a painting with glassy masses of various colors on a substrate of copper or silver. Then the products are fired in a kiln at a very high temperature, about 720 - 850°C. The end result is products of magnificent beauty. They are very strong and durable, do not fade in the sun.nThe art of this technique is very complex and requires high skill from the enamel artist. Hot enamel is very capricious when fired. Since during firing the paints change their color and only a very experienced master can foresee the result.