Antique Gold Work Changes the Course of Jewelry DesignOf all the discoveries which transformed jewelry design in the History of Jewelry, Antique Gold Work techniques of the nineteenth century, were one of the most important. The "forms" that Antique Jewelry takes on as it travels through time involves certain gold work techniques that were applied at specific time periods. If you can identify these specific techniques then you will be able to assess the age of your Antique Jewel with much more accuracy. Beautiful gold work, embellishing Antique Jewelry, painstakingly created by master craftsman, revolved around three fundamental gold work techniques. These techniques were extremely innovative at the time and resulted in truly luxurious jewelry. If you examine antique jewelry long enough you will notice that three antique gold work forms come up time and time again. These forms utilized the unique properties and the availability of gold. Gold is the most malleable of the precious metals. This means it can be worked for the longest amount of time without cracking and around the middle of the 19th century, European jewelers suddenly realized it. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of one square meter, or an ounce into 300 square feet! Gold readily forms alloys with many other metals. These alloys can be produced to increase the hardness or to create different colored gold, for example adding copper gives a redder metal, known as Rose Gold or silver to produce White Gold. The utilization of these properties resulted in extraordinary and luxurious Antique Gold Work decoration that you see in examples of fine Antique Jewelry of the 19th century. Until 1820, gold was mainly used as backing to silver-set stones but in the second decade, from the 1820s and 1830s a new form of gold work evolved which was a kind of filigree work, known as 'Cannetille'.
Late Georgian Antique Jewelry
In the 1830's gold was skilllfully wrought into sprays of flowers, brooches with stylised flowers- the heads of which were made from persian turquoise, pearls or sometimes citrines and amethyst gems for pansies. And as if coming to us from a fairy tale as gold spun from a wooden spinning wheel, this exquisite antique gold work technique was used to make light and yet luxurious jewelry. Cannetille or "canetille" was named after the gold embroideries of the Napoleonic years; a type of embroidery made with very twisted gold or silver thread. The patterns are often in the form of scrolls or rosettes made of tightly coiled wires. This labor intensive technique was unfortunately short-lived and fell out of favor soon after it was introduced and no one has dared take up the difficult process since. During this time semi-precious stones also became fashionable. Amethysts, topaz and aquamarines were set in this beautiful filigree 'Cannetille' antique gold work, that made the most of a small amount of gold. Cannetille takes the form of a filigree pattern, where the surface is encrusted with fine detailing in gold, consisting of spirals of wire or grainti where small granules are used, often enhanced with gemstones or enamelling. Gold articles so decorated were hand-made but when used on silver or a base metal, the pattern was made by stamping. This style was popular in both England and France during the 1820's. Stones were often foiled for uniformity of colour and were set in nests of tightly-curled fine gold wires with trails of tiny gold granules. Cannetille Gold Work Fades into RepousséBy 1840, the taste for Cannetille had completely faded and was replaced by a form of gold work called Repoussé.With this method the design was raised in relief by hammering the gold from the back, and machine made parts were often hand finished. Repoussé hammered by the hand of an artist demonstrated the skill and fine craftsmanship produced in the [Victorian era.] Designs for this kind of Gold Jewelry were, scroll-work, strap-work, shells, flowers and leaves. Many of these motifs and patterns established during this pre-Victorian era continued throughout the century. Colored gold mixed with copper provided a red sheen or with silver a green tint and was used for stems and leaves and the matt surface complimented the satin finish of the turquoise or Natural Pearls.
Some of the best examples of this kind of can also be seen in the pre-Victorian gentlemen's seals which were considered very important items of costume jewelry at the time. Incredible skill and care went into these important accessories. Gold on both massive or minute seals was richly chased into flowers, leaves, seashell motifs, animals or coiled serpents. Granulation -An Ancient Gold work TechniqueMajor archaeological discoveries from the middle of the century re-introduced a lost new 'archaeological style' of antique gold work known as Granulation. While genuine ancient examples had occasionally been seen in society such as the newly discovered Etruscan pieces worn by Lucien Bonaparte's wife in Rome in the 1830s, these were rare.The finest jewelry from the ancient world was created by the Etruscans who had settled in Tuscany in Italy in the late 8th century BC. Their reputation rests primarily on their unequalled mastery of the difficult ancient gold work technique of Granulation
which they used to create textured surface patterning on their gold work. Minute gold spheres were heated to melting point (sometimes as small as 0.14mm) and then attached to the gold surface below without melting the surface. This technique had largely been a mystery until the 1930s. It was then discovered that a mixture of copper carbonate, water and fish glue was used to hold the granules in place and on heating the copper fused with the gold to create a solder-less joint. The process could create simple geometric patterns and intricate scenes to cover whole areas. It looked like fine gold dust! There was a revival in 'archaeological style' jewelry in the 1860s following excavation in Italy and the Crimea. A number of European jewelers became famous for their close copies. One of the most important working in the archaeological style and using antique gold work techniques of Granulation was Fortunato Pio Castellani (1793-1865) followed by his two sons, Alessandro (1824-83) and Augusto (1929-1914). Casellani's work was inspired by Etruscan and Greek originals. They kept up to date with the new archaeological discoveries and were able to amass a great collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman gold work. Their knowledge of ancient jewelry won them international reputation. Castellani of Rome had shops in London and Paris. Ancient gold work was often heavily embossed with details in intricate gold filigree and fine granules. And although Castellani did not achieve an exact replication of the Etruscan technique he achieved a pretty close match using solder. You can identify ancient 'archeological style' jewelry often by the antique gold work. More information about ancient archaeological style jewelry and gold work will be added shortly.
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