Filigree Engagement Ring
A jewel work of a delicate kindmade with twisted threads usually of gold and silver is known as Filigree or Cift-isi. These days ajoure work is commonly mislabeled as filigree. The differencebetween filigree and ajoure is that while filigree involves threads being joinedtogether to form an object, ajoure involves holes being punched, drilled, orcut through an existing piece of metal.
Filigree was anciently part ofthe ordinary work of the jeweler.However, it has become a special branch of jewel work in modern times. Filigreeinvolves curling, twisting and plaiting fine pliable threads of metal, and joiningthem at their points of contact with each other, and with the ground, by meansof gold or silver solder and borax, by the help of the blowpipe. Small grainsor beads of the same metals are often set in the eyes of volutes, on thejunctions, or at intervals at which they will set off the wire-workeffectively. The more delicate work is generally protected by framework ofstouter wire.
Modern filigree ornaments such asbrooches, crosses, earrings and other personal ornaments are generallysurrounded and subdivided by bands of square or flat metal, giving consistencyto the filling up, to gain a proper shape.
Greek and Etruscan Filigree:
Patterns of gold wire are laiddown with great fragility on a gold ground in ornaments found from Phoeniciansites, such as Cyprusand Sardinia, but the art was sophisticated to itshighest perfection in the Greek and Etruscan filigree of the 6th to the 3rdcenturies BC. The Louvre and the BritishMuseum preserve a number ofearrings and other personal ornaments found in central Italy.Almost all of them are made of filigree work. Some earrings are in
the form offlowers of geometric design, surrounded by one or more edges each made up ofminute volutes of gold wire. This kind of ornament is varied by slightdifferences in the way of arranging the number or arrangement of the volutes.But the ancient designs do not contain the feathers and petals seen in modernItalian filigree. During rare cases filigree devices in wire areself-supporting and not applied to metal plates.
Museum Collections of Filigree:
An amazingly rich collection ofjewelry from the tombs of the Crimea is preserved at themuseum of the Hermitage at Saint Petersburg.Many bracelets and necklaces in that collection are made of twisted wire, somein as many as seven rows of plaiting, with clasps in the shape of heads ofanimals of beaten work. Some of the ornaments are strings of large beads ofgold, decorated with volutes, knots and other patterns of wire soldered overthe surfaces.
Filigree in Asia:
Filigree has been worked from themost remote period without any change in the designs in Indiaand various parts of central Asia. It is certain thatthe Indian filigree workers retain the same patterns as those of the ancientGreeks, and work them in the same way, down to the present day irrespective of theAsiatic jewelers being influenced by the Greeks settled on that continent, ormerely training under traditions held in common with them. Wandering workmenare given so much gold, coined or rough, which is weighed, heated in a pan ofcharcoal, beaten into wire, and then worked in the courtyard or verandah of theemployer\'s house according to the designs of the artist, who weighs thecomplete work on restoring it and is paid at a specified rate for his labour.Very fine grains or beads and spines of gold, scarcely thicker than coarsehair, projecting from plates of gold are methods of ornamentation still used.
Medieval Filigree:
In many collections of medievaljewel work (such as that in the South Kensington Museum) reliquaries, coversfor the gospels, etc., were made either in Constantinople from the 6th to the12th centuries, or in monasteries in Europe, in which Byzantine goldsmiths\'work was studied and emulated. These objects are decorated with filigree andenamel, enriched with precious stones, polished, but not cut into parts. Sometimes,filigree covers large surfaces of gold soldered on and corner pieces of theborders of book covers, or the panels of reliquaries, are not infrequently madeup of complicated pieces of plaited work alternating with spaces covered withenamel. Byzantine filigree work seldom has small stones set amongst the curvesor knots.
Admirable examples of filigreepatterns laid down in wire on gold, from Anglo-Saxon tombs, may be seen in the British Museum notably a brooch from Dover,and a sword-hilt from Cumberland. Inthe north of Europe the Saxons, Britons and Celts werefrom an early period skillful in several kinds of goldsmiths\' work.
Irish Filigree:
The RoyalIrish Academyin Dublin contains a number ofreliquaries and personal jewels, of which filigree is the general and most remarkableornament. The Irish filigree work is more thoughtful in design and more variedin pattern than that of any period or country that could be named. The "Tara" brooch has been copied and emulated, and the shape and decoration of it arewell known. The Irish filigree is varied by numerous designs by which one threadcan be traced through curious knots and complications, which, disposed overlarge surfaces, balance one another, but always with special varieties andarrangements difficult to trace with the eye, instead of fine curls or volutesof gold thread. The long thread appears and disappears without breach ofcontinuity, the two ends generally worked into the head and the tail of aserpent or a monster. The reliquary containing the "Bell of Saint Patrick"is covered with knotted work in many varieties. A two-handled trophy, calledthe "Ardagh Chalice" found near Limerick in1868, is decorated with work of this kind of amazing fineness. Twelve plaqueson a band round the body of the vase, plaques on each handle and round the footof the vase have a series of different designs of characteristic patterns, infine filigree wire work wrought on the front of the repousse ground.
Some very curious filigree workwas brought from Abyssinia after the capture ofMagdalaarm-guards, slippers, cups, etc, some of which are now in the SouthKensingtonMuseum.They are made of thin plates of silver, over which the wire-work is soldered.The filigree is subdivided by narrow borders of simple pattern, and theintervening spaces are made up of many patterns, some with grains set atintervals. Silver filigree brooches and buttons are also made in Denmark,Norway and Sweden.Little chains and pendants are added to this northern work.
Other Articles
