Fragment of a button badge
The image on this badge is not etched like other known button badges but engraved.
Found in the French department of Eure-et-Loire, this fragment measures 1,5 x 2 cm. It shows an unidentified scene with a horse and an archer. After comparison with other button badges, it becomes clear that this fragmentary badge came about using a different technique. The lines on the badge are made with a burin, a kind of gouge. Starting pointed these straight lines run out a wide. The lines of etched badges, such as Kunera nos 11002 or 21059, are wider and not pointed at the beginning. Additionally, these lines have a less ‘straight’ appearance. These characteristics are used to distinguish engravings from etchings.
Button badges were made towards the end of the fifteenth or in the early sixteenth century. Many have a religious image. They were made of a hard copper alloy as opposed to the usual lead-tin alloy or pewter. Button badges also did not have eyelets on the side or a pin for attachment as pewter ones. Instead they had an eyelet of iron on the reverse. During the casting process, a small piece of iron wire was inserted into the liquid metal and later bent into the shape of an eyelet. As a consequence many button badges have spots of iron oxidation on the obverse where the wire touches the surface. In most cases, the iron eyelet itself has broken off.
For some time there has been a discussion about the way images were applied to button badges. The question was whether they were engraved or etched. In Heilig en Profaan 3 (2012, pp. 59-62) Willy Piron explained that these images were usually etched with a template because that is the only way to get the exact same images on multiple buttons. This kind of multiplication is not possible when an image is engraved. This button badge showing a archer is therefore probably one of a kind.