The techniques of gilding of decorative objects
The gilding of ancient objects is performed through various techniques: gold leaf, pastille, dusting, etc.
Description
The gilding for the characteristic sumptuousness and luster that it is able to give to objects, has always been widely used in decoration, and there are various methods to use it for this purpose.
How do you distinguish gilding and fakes
How you can distinguish a genuine gold plating from a false one;a gilding mission by a gouache? Obviously you need a lot of attention and experience, but we can say that:
- The gilding made with real gold leaf is different from that one made with imitation gold, because gold keeps it shining for centuries, imitation gold, even if covered with protective varnish, darkens really soon. Moreover, the real gold leaf is much thinner than the imitation one, it is almost “transparent” and sometimes you can recognize the color of the underlying bolo, vice versa the imitation gold is more opaque and more flashy.
- There are no methods to distinguish the gilding mission and gold leaf, because are similar in the effect. But the gilding is always burnished, unlike the mission, and so this could be a sign of distinction between the two methods. Or using a cotton ball wet in warm water it will dissolve the glue of the gold leaf, instead he mission being often oil-based, is not sensitive to water. In general, however, the highly sculpted baroque furniture were decorated with gilding mission.
- In antique porcelain the fire gilding is clearly different from the mission, because the fire gilding is a lot more vivid and shiny.
- If it’s gouache, it should dissolve the glue and let the gold leaf peel off. The mixtion is being generally oil-based is not sensitive to water.
GOLD LEAF (ALSO CALLED GOUACHE)
Leaf gilding
This is the most difficult process, but it provides the best results. The same procedure is adopted also for the imitiation gold leaf, silver or aluminum. The following procedure is the same as the old one, with the only difference that now the gold is no more hand-hammered into thin layers, but it is industrially made.
Method
- On a rough and perfectly cleaned wooden support, put an adhesive layer made of hot rabbit skin glue mixed with gilder’s gypsum(Bologna gypsum), but avoid the boiling, or it will lose its adhesiveness. When the plaster is ready, apply it with a brush where you want to gild. When dried you have to perfectly smooth the surface, to avoid lumps that will be clearly visible after that the gold leaf will be applied.
- Now apply the bolus (yolk mixed with red clay), that on the market is available in red, yellow and black colours. The bolus creates a sort of film, that, once dried, become the support to apply the gold leaf.
- To paste the gold leaf you have to paint a small area with isinglass diluted in water. Using the gilder’s knife, lift the gold leaf and lay it on a deerskin pillow; cut the leaf into regular strips a bit larger than the area to cover. To lift the gold leaf you need a brush made with vaio bristles (an animal similar to the squirrel), rub this on your face to electrify it, then lift the strips and place them on the surface, avoiding wrinkles.
- When the glue is dried, polish the surface with agate stone (browning). Grease the agate with wax for a better sliding. Remember that the pressure may damage the gold leaf.
- For an antiquing effect, brush the surface with a mixture of water, rabbit glue and brown clay.
Video - The Goldbeater
All that is gilded in the Royal Palace has been prepared with the hand-wrought gold, whether it be furniture, picture frames or ceilings.
The Gilding
GOLD DUST GILDING
It is technically identical to leaf gilding, but instead of using the leaf, gold powder dissolved in gum arabic is used. It is applied with a brush and then polished with agate stone.
Sprinkle gilding
The sprinkle gilding
The area to be gilded is covered with an adhesive (the mixtion) and the gold dust is dropped, which will adhere only into the chosen point.
GILDING IN RILIEF
A frame gilded with this tecnique
it is a type of gilding in relief. A mixture of plaster, glue and gold dust is prepared to be spread in very thick layers.
Gilding with mixtion
The mixtion is available in small bottles
Cover the surface to be gilded with a special adhesive paint (called mission). When it is almost dry, but still sticky, leans over the leaf, and stick it via pressing it with a cotton ball or with an extremely clean brush. When finished, if you want to get an antiquing effect apply the same procedure used for the gold leaf gilding. The gilding mission in regard to the gold leaf can’t be burnished with agate stone, and so it is less shiny, but because it is much easyer to apply, it is very useful especially for extremely sculpted baroque furnitures.
HONEY GOLDENING
A honey gilded Sevres porcelain
Method created in the Sevres porcelain factory in 1750. It consists of a mixture of honey with gold dust, and was used to gild small objects and porcelain. It is fixed via a low-temperature cooking. The finish is always opaque, but the higher is the temperature, more opaque it will become.
FIRE GILDING (MERCURY OR ORMOLU GILDING)
Gilded mercury clock in the King’s Study
The birth of the fire gilding focus is controversial: maybe born in the fourth century b.c in Greece, but became common only in the Roman Empire; around the II-III century a.d in appeared in China during the IV-III century b.c.
It is used almost exclusively for the gold plating of the metals, but sometimes also for porcelain, especially during the Empire style period (1800-1840).
Method
- melt gold in hot mercury;
- wet the object with nitric acid, and cover it with the mixture of gold and mercury;
- heat the object in the oven at high temperature, or with a blowtorch, so that evaporating the mercury the gold will be shown.
The technique is very harmful to health due to the toxicity of the mercury fumes and today it is almost in disuse; instead it was in vogue in the eighteenth century to gild the bronzes that decorated the Louis XV (Rococò), Louis XVI (Neoclassical) and Empire (late Neoclassic) furnishings, but due to the many premature deaths of the gilders, it began to be replaced since 1860 from the new galvanic gilding.
GILDING WITH TRANSFER PRINTING
it is an extremely economical gilding
Industrial method created around the middle of 1700, and used mainly for the porcelain. The color is placed on a matrix and then engraved on a suitable sheet. This sheet then is pressed on, for example, a plate, and the drawing is transferred. It is used both with the colors or gold. It easy to be recognized, because are clearly noticeable the joint of the two sides of the sheet. At the end of 1800 it evolved in lithographic printing. It has no artistic value.
GALVANIC GILDING (OR ELECTROPLATING)
The electroplating is a method used almost exclusively to give a better appearance to metal, covering it with a more noble metals such as, for example, gold, silver, platinum, rhodium, nickel, chromium, or to coat the inside of silver tableware objects. It is an electrochemical process in which, by inserting in a liquid (plating bath) both the metal to be plated that the noble metal (so used as negative and positive poles), and with electricity, the metal that serves as a positive pole lose its particles that are deposited onto the other metal. Being an industrial process it has no artistic value, and if the gilding of an ancient object is restored using this procedure, it loses much of its value.
The galvanic gilding was invented in Italy in 1802 by Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli at the University of Pavia, using the galvanic cell just invented by Alessandro Volta.