Gold has been celebrated as a symbol of luxury, wealth, and power throughout history and around the world. This rare metal is prized for its color, its unique luster, its special working properties, and its permanence. The technique of gilding, creating a thin layer of gold over a less valuable material, developed to satisfy the desire for gold.
Through this lavishly illustrated volume, readers will discover how various cultures created golden surfaces and how the allure of gold inspired new and ingenious technology. Each chapter is authored by experts, discussing gilding in ancient societies in Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and the Americas, as well as medieval gilding practices and more recent technologies in the West. Gilding on architectural metal and outdoor sculpture is also included. Readers will learn about foil and leaf gilding, depletion and diffusion techniques, fire gilding and electroplating, among others. Those interested in how and why gilded metal surfaces deteriorate will find answers in a chapter on corrosion chemistry.
Cleaning gilded surfaces takes special expertise. Readers will find valuable insights throughout the book on conservation concerns and considerations, such as why one should never polish gold on a work by Faberge, and cautions on cleaning "gilded" surfaces that may not be gold at all. Some chapters are devoted to case studies of conservation treatments.
Contributors
Preface
A History of Gilding with Particular Reference to Statuary
Andrew Oddy
Corrosion Chemistry of Gilded Silver and Copper
Lyndsie Selwyn
The Selective use of Gilding on Egyptian Polychromed Bronzes
Patricia S. Griffin
Gilded Silver from Ancient Nubia
Susanne Gansicke and Richard Newman
Two Gilded Bronze Sculptures from the Athenian Agora
Alice Boccia Paterakis
Gilding in Britain: Celtic, Roman, and Saxon
Peter Northover and Kilian Anheuser
A Study of the Gilding of Silver in Byzantium
Pete Dandridge
The Gilding of Metals in China
Paul Jett and W.T. Chase
Archaelogical Gilded Metals Excavated in Japan
Ryu Murakami
Three Gilded Tibetan Vessels
Bruce Christman
Lacquer as an Adhesive for Gilding on Copper Alloy Sculpture in Southeast Asia
Donna K. Strahan and Christopher A. Maines
A Review of Gilding Techniques in Ancient South America
David A. Scott
The Characterisation of Gold Layers on Copper Artifacts from the Piura Valley (Peru) in the Early Intermediate Period
Silvia A. Centeno and Deborah Schorsch
Gilding Techniques of the Renaissance and After
Andrew Lins
The Use of Mercury Salts in Gold Electroplating
Andrew Lins and Sally Malenka
The Fabrication of Gilt Bronze Mounts for French Eighteenth-century Furniture
Brian Considine and Michel Jamet
The Many Golds of Fabergé: Recognition and Guidelines for Care
Carol Aiken
All That Glitters is not Gold: Other Surfaces that Appear to be Gilded
Jonathan Thornton
The Treatment of False Gilding: A Case Study
Deborah Long
Richard Lippold's The Sun - Investigation and Treatment Considerations
Jack Flotte and Jean Dommermuth
Preservation of a Gilded Monumental Sculpture: Research and Treatment of Daniel Chester French's Quadriga
Linda Merk-Gould
Architectural Gilding on Exterior Metal: An Overview of Materials and Methodology
Michael W. Kramer
It is an impressive volume [and] greatly enhances the recent conservation literature on the topic of gilding...Gilded Metals: History, Technology, and Conservation is an eminently useful collection of exceptional papers on the subject...
Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 43(1) (2004) 116-119
