Background
‘Filigree, delicate, lacelike ornamental openwork composed of intertwined wire threads of gold or silver, widely used since antiquity for jewelry. The art consists of curling, twisting, or plaiting fine, pliable metal threads and soldering them at their points of contact with each other and, if there is one, with the metal groundwork.’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition)

Technique
Precious metals – gold and silver – have traditionally evoked power and prestige. Jewellery and other remarkable objects were made from them. They were used for rites, ceremonies and other rituals. Gold and silver showed that you belonged to a certain class of society and that you measured up to the norms and values prevailing there.

Because of their low melting point and elasticity, gold and silver are easily worked. Among the various techniques one has always stood out. In it very pure precious metal is drawn into extremely fine threads. Hundreds of metres of thread can be drawn from just one gram of silver. These threads are then ingeniously interwoven to produce almost transparent objects. This age-old technique is known as filigree (from the Latin filum, thread, and granum, grain).

Detail: Stand in the form of a leaf belonging to object number 3, China, 1740-1750, silver, filigree, gilt
State Museum the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Production
Filigree was already in vogue and widespread in the ancient world. Examples are known from the second millennium BC from Egypt, Crete and Greece. The Hermitage Amsterdam showed some magnificent examples in the exhibition ‘Greek gold’ in the spring of 2004. As a result of the many conquests and trade contacts, filigree products are found in numerous other regions and countries, such as the Far East, the Arabian East, Italy and Russia. In the 16th and 17th centuries the technique was used in practically all the countries of Europe and Asia.

Historical events were often an occasion for exchanging views and adopting methods and stylistic details. Thus the Jewish silversmiths took their technique with them when they were expelled from Spain. The same was true of the Huguenots in 17th-century France. They dispersed all over Europe, and combined their own familiar filigree methods with local stylistic forms. The great geographical discoveries of the 16th and 17th centuries also played an important part in the creation of a universal style of filigree. Asian contacts in particular, not least through the founding of the Dutch East India Company, were to have a great influence on the further development of the technique of filigree.

Set of cassolettes, India, Goa (?), second half 17th century
silver, filigree, height 21 cm; length by the shoulders 14 cm; diameter base 9 cm
State Museum the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Dissemination
The principal centres of filigree, such as Guangzhou (Canton), were to be found in China. This is evident from the large numbers of objects of Chinese origin in the present collections. For Europeans filigree from China was exotic and an example of virtuoso technique. Moreover, the work of a Chinese master was cheaper, so that in the course of the 17th century many objects, such as jewellery, were ordered in the East. These orders were carried out on the basis of drawings or examples provided. Descriptions and partial designs were also sent. Many of the filigree objects in a European style were thus made by artists in the East. Where and when filigree has been made remains a complex matter. The international nature of the formal vocabulary, the absence of marks and the lack of information together explain why many attributions to a particular centre of production are debatable.

On being exported, the valuable objects found their way to the countries that traded with China in the 16th and 17th centuries: Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and England. Production centres also developed in India. Portuguese ships brought a whole stream of export products and exotic goods from there to Europe. These curiosities, ordered by monasteries and royal houses, were exported to Europe via the Coromandel Coast of India (by modern Madras) and the Portuguese colony Goa. Conversely, European ships brought Portuguese filigree to India, where it served as an example for local silversmiths. The furnishings for Portuguese churches, for example, were made in Goa.

Detail: Set of cassolettes, India, Goa (?), second half 17th century
silver, filigree, height 21 cm; length by the shoulders 14 cm; diameter base 9 cm
State Museum the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

In the 17th century the Cantonese market was controlled by English and Dutch traders. They brought exotic wares via several stops on the way to the European courts, where filigree was much in demand. At Versailles, for example, Louis XIV had nearly 900 objects in gold and silver filigree on display. The royal houses of Spain, England and Germany were also eager customers.