A very fine French signed enamel of Colombine by the famous artist Auguste Jean. Superb colours and an early and very powerful effect of irridescence and metallic glint to the enamel which Jean was the first to employ and for which he filed patents. Superb original cast bronze ormolu frame of heavy guage. Circa 1870. 6.5 inches by 5 inches ( 16.25 cms by 12.5 cms). Auguste Jean was born in Paris, probably between 1830 and 1835, given he founded his workshop about 1859. He was the son of a ceramist and began to make a name for himself from 1860 as a ceramist and decorator of fine faience before specialising in glassware. Keen to innovate, Auguste Jean filed several patents designed to give a décor or metallic glints firstly to ceramics then to his glasswork. A tireless inventor, Auguste Jean, through the freedom and inventiveness of these exuberant forms, opened the way to research that continues in the work of glassmakers today.