Virtuoso techniques

Throughout his work, Hugo d’Oignies highlighted the various artistic methods. Unlike his contemporaries, however, who often used colour through numerous incrustations of precious stones and enamel, Hugo’s work is more sober, less coloured, with the accent placed more on the technical virtuosity of working the metal itself. He paid great attention to the quality of his drawings and their interpretation; he did not hesitate to juxtapose or combine different styles and technique. Whilst the subjects chosen by Hugo are of the very purest Christian tradition, we nevertheless discover in the “margins” of his work, rather like certain manuscript illuminators, a wealth of motifs and great imagination in his choice of iconography.

Among the techniques in which Hugo excelled, we can mention in particular niello, filigree, chasing and stamping. Niello involves making an incision in a sheet of precious metal and filling in the spaces left with an alloy of copper, lead and sulphur. Once fired, the mixture becomes black and contrasts with the polished surface of the metal. Filigree requires great manual dexterity because it requires working with very fine silver and gold wire to make superimposed curves and interlacing in relief on the metal surface. Whilst Hugo’s chasing demonstrates his indisputable drawing talents, it was the technique of stamping – which enables motifs to be repeated thanks to the use of a hollowed-out die – that provided him with new possibilities of composition, which were lighter and fresher, that built his fame.