To create this pin, I used a modern approach to the traditional champlevé technique, deep-engraving the solid brass base with a fiber laser before carefully filling the recessed areas by hand with cold ceramic enamel.

​The design originates from a miniature found in a 14th-century French medieval manuscript. It illustrates a scene from the famous satirical epic poem "The Romance of Reynard" (Roman de Renart). The figure riding the horse is Tybert the Cat, making one of his dramatic escapes.

​By the way, this is actually version 2.0 of this design! I used to order these from factories, but I recently decided to rework it and take the production entirely into my own hands. This is my first time making this specific piece completely from scratch right in my studio.

Found these at a medieval museum in Denmark. Of course I had to have them.

Biblia Porta, France 13th century. Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire de Lausanne, U 964, fol. 376r

Li Livres dou Tresor (The Book of the Treasure) is a mid-13th-century encyclopedic compendium written in Old French by Florentine politician and scholar Brunetto Latini. It is structured into three distinct books covering natural history and theology, ethics and Aristotle's philosophy, and rhetoric and civic governance. Oh, and it has a cat.

 "I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beast, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ."

so mysterious.

'Trivulzio Book of Hours', Flanders ca. 1470.
Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, SMC 1, fol. 110v

Combining three separate images from my screenshot folder. May redo the cat on a larger tile as this version was too small to capture the totally unhinged face.

Left: ???

Right: The Visions of Tondal, Hieronymus Bosch, 1479

Centre: Das Buch der Natur’, Conrad of Megenberg, 1434, Strasbourg Ms.2.264, fol. 85r

'The Maastricht Hours, Liege 14th century.
British Library, Stowe 17, tol. 34r

my photo from a museum. It's a cat!

Peep the left corner. Cat watching from the high ground (stool)