Article Outline
Most decorative techniques, on the other hand, were presumably worked out once the refined raw material had arrived by barter in the developed urban civilizations of southwestern Iran, Mesopotamia, and Egypt by individuals who gradually became a distinct class of worker—the goldsmiths and the silversmiths.
Decoration relies on the relative softness of metals. The earliest in use probably derived from the same beating processes employed for shaping, for it is possible to furrow or ridge metal by blows upon the surface (or, with sheet metal, from the underside); this gives the pleasing effect of parallel ribs seen on copper cups and bowls, found, for instance, in the royal graves at Ur. More localized and selected hammering can raise anything from simple bosses to whole pictorial effects in relief. This technique, usually known as repoussé, has been used for over 4000 years; it reached its greatest elaboration in 16th- and 17th-century Europe on precious gold and silver utensils for church and domestic use.
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Engraving and Chasing
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Linear patterns can also be made on surfaces either by removing a narrow fillet of metal with a cutting or graving tool, or by depressing the surface with a blunt point and hammering along the line to be delineated without removing any metal. The former is called engraving and the latter chasing; these techniques are mostly reserved for precious metals.
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Matting, Etching, and Oxidization
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Another method of surface decoration is to impress it with repeating patterns of hatched lines (again, usually used on precious metals), thus matting or breaking up areas to contrast with other areas left polished and reflective. Yet another method of darkening selected areas is to etch them with acid, a technique mostly used on steel armor and the steel parts of weapons. In the 19th century a process called oxidization was devised; with it, a subtle darkening effect was achieved on polished silver surfaces with a pickling process using sulfur.
Luxurious decorative effects may be achieved by applying one metal to another or by inlaying a precious metal into a less precious one. Such, for instance, are the techniques of gilding or parcel-gilding silver, bronze, and steel objects and of inlaying silver and gold wires into brass and bronze. The latter was perfected in the Arab world in the Middle Ages; it is called damascening, after Damascus, a Syrian city particularly famous for such work. In the 1st millennium bc, Chinese ceremonial bronze vessels were exquisitely inlaid with gold and silver.
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