Letting In the Daylight: Plique-a-jour in Daylight Savings Time

Did you ever make stained glass Christmas cookies? Using sugar cookie dough, you'd make a little "window frame," leaving space for "panes." You'd then fill those spaces with crushed hard candies of different colors. It was best to keep this simple--a rectangle with a cross in the middle, one color per pane. (I never kept it simple, favoring elaborate Gothic styles with multiple colors.) When baked, the crushed candy melts together, creating transparent candy panes. 

Plique-a-jour jewelry uses a similar, if considerably more elegant (and stable) approach.  Translating to "letting in the light," plique-a-jour work begins with a metal framework (or cells); it is then filled with enamel and put in a kiln until the enamel hardens. The French jeweler and glass master Rene Lalique used a copper backing for his pieces, which he'd then immerse in an acid bath to remove the copper. Developed by Italian scupltor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini in 1500, the technique saw a revival in the Art Nouveau period, when delicate floral and arborial designs were favored.

How fitting: that aspen leaves, dragonfly wings, all things ethereal and mortal, would draw artisans to this delicate technique, requiring both precision and fire. Plique-a-jour work reminds us, particularly in autumn, that what is beautiful passes through fire, that what is fragile holds its own magic and strength, letting in the daylight, even as these days shorten and we move into a darker season of leaves falling, the color of crushed candies.