PRIMITIVE-GOLDSMITHS

Evening Star, Issue 19660, 13 September 1927, Page 13

PRIMITIVE-GOLDSMITHS

ANCIENT ART RECOVERED ENCRUSTATION OF GOLD. An English craftsman has just condueled a remarkable investigation into the ancient art known as the encrustation of gold, which was practised by the ancient Mediterranean civilisations over 2,000 years ago, and he lias succeeded in doing what craftsmen throughout the centuries have failed to do; ho has discovered the whole of tho secrets of this long-lost art, and built up once more tho technique practised by primitive goldsmiths in days long before the Christian era.

In the' working of gold into challices, plate, and other things of beauty there has never been anything more exquisite than this encrustation, or granulation as it is sometimes called. Briefly, it consisted of decorating the surface of the gold with fine .granules, also of gold, and often as fine as dust. With these granules many extremely beautiful designs were worked. The primitive workers had a cunning way of putting the grains on and fixing them permanently to the surface by some invisible means, and all through the centuries since men have sought to recover the secrets of this art and failed.

At any rate, they have failed to recover it completely. It is recorded that early in the nineteenth century a skilful Roman craftsman, Alessandro Casrellani, found some wandering goldsmiths in the country of tho Basques, by the Pyrenees, who were practising a crude form of tho ancient art. and it is said that he and they together produced some fairly good specimens of it. In several important points, however, it fell far short of the old work, and Castellan! did not transmit the knowledge he had gained. The ancient art was brought to perfection by the Etruscans, the race which lived in the plains of Northern Italy at the time of the Roman Empire, a race of which we know very little indeed. Samples of their encrustation work arc to be seen in various museums throughout tho world, and marvellously beautiful work it is. With all their ingenuity and mechanical contrivances. modern craftsmen have failed to produce anything to equal it. Not even Benvenuto Cellini, whose work is still a source of wonder to the world, could recover tho old secrets of encrustation, and he went so far as to declare the revival of the art to bo too difficult for his contemporaries, Tho things which mystified Cellini so much about this art also mystified tho English craftsman Air W. T. Blackband, who is head master of the evening school for jewellers and silversmiths at Birmingham. For twenty odd years he devoted his spare tune to the study of this fascinating subject—reading old books, visiting museums, and inspecting pictures of primitive goldsmiths at work in India and other parts of the world. He came upon the first clue to tho secrets of tho art in a rather wonderful way. Much of the twenty years had been occupied in working back through tho elaborate mechanical processes of modern metallurgy, to see if some sign of the ancient craft lingered there. But not a single cluo was found, and it was not until everything modern was abandoned that the first glimmering of knowledge about the ancient processes was revealed —and very simple it was after all. Logically enough, in turning from modern methods, Mr Blackband decided to put himself in just tho samo set of conditions as he imagined tho Etruscan goldsmith would work _in 2,500 years ago, his _ equipment being a charcoal humor in place of tho electric furnace, two rough stones for beating the gold into wore, a piece of leather, a knife, some clay and wood, and a few nuggets of pure gold brought from the bed of a river in Australia for the purpose. Mr Blackband argued thus: that by proceeding slowly, stage by stage, through the processes he imagined would be gone through in the Etruscan encampments, he would discover in a more or less accidental way the secrets of the art.

And so, in fact, ho did. Ho found how the tiny grains, small as dust, could be soldered on to a surface, without a trace of the solder being left, and moreover, how the natural lustre of the gold could be preserved after heating. Step by step, the whole of the ancient technique was reconstructed. Much, it was found, depended upon the use of pure gold, which has properties not found in alloyed gold, and it became evident that the Etruscans know nothing of alloys, skillful as they were. Nor, as this investigation also proved, did they know anythingof the draw-plate for making fine wire in long lengths. They used stone for beating strips of gold into long, thin lengths, and by this simple method they could achieve a hair-like or filigree thinness. From this wire they obtained their granules by molting, and with the tiny grains they carried surface decoration to a point of exquisite perfection, executing many fine designs, which might include such delicate patterns as the following mane of a tiger or the hoard of a man. In point of mere knowledge, as Mr Blackband’s work has proved, the primitive goldsmith knew loss than the modern craftsman, but in the cunning use of elementary fundamentals they were far and awav superior. When Mr Blackbaud had become sufficiently acquainted with the process involved, he was able to dispense with the primitive tools and do the same work a little better with modern equipment. He expresses Ill’s intention of making the secrets of the old art known, for, he believes they will put the means to a now beauty in the hands of latter-day craftsman, while they will also create a new appreciation of the beauty of virgin gold. On that account alone, therefore, Ins twenty years’ work has been invaluable, "biit it has another reward, in that it makes to the modern world a gift from the far-off leisured days when men knew little of the Tyrant time (as we have made it) and could spend their energies lovingly upon some subject of beauty, a cup, or the decorated cover of some precious book. Mr Blackband’s work has been shown to the authorities at the South Kensington Museum, where the Castellani reproductions of the ancient Etruscan art are kept, and they acknowledged the accuracy of his claim to have recovered, more fully than anyone else, the secrets of this long-lost ciaft. In tlie osienti.il feature of the art—the delicate finesse of tho encrustation with tiny granules of gold—it was recognised that Mr Blackband’s work was superior to that of Castellani, and is comparable with tho ancient examples. It has not be shown at South Kensington Museum because of_ the rule there that the work of living artists and craftsmen cannot be shown —a restriction doubtless necessary on tho grounds of general expediency—hut it has been shown at the Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham,_ where it aroused much interest, and will probably be shown in London next winter.