Necklace of granulated spheres. Made by Giacinto Melillo. Gold. Private collection.
"When Alessandro [Castellani] noted the hackly surface [on ancient Etruscan jewellery] where granulation was missing, it led him to investigate ways in which the solder filings might be introduced under rather than over the grains and filigree wires. On Castellani (and Melillo) jewelry with areas of powder granulation, the joints between the more substantial components of the jewelry reveal conventional solder seams, but the localized powder granulation shows evidence for soldering with very fine solder particles. These particles tend to be present among the granules and filigree, not on the neighboring components, and to be more in evidence under the grains than over them.
"Such an appearance would be all but impossible to produce with the traditional solder-sprinkling technique. One way it could be achieved was if the solder and flux particles were mixed with the gum or glue and painted onto the required area of the sheet gold and then the grains positioned on this. With the finest grain sizes it might even have been possible to mix grains, solder particles, ground flux, and glue together and "paint" all into position in one operation. An oil such as lavender oil, as used by painters in enamel, could have been substituted for the glue. If Alessarndro did use such a process to apply his solder it would have been a major change from the way in which filigree was traditionally soldered--and far more akin to contemporary enameling techniques with which he was also experimenting in the 1850s."
In Jack Ogden, "Revivers of the Lost Art: Alessandro Castellani and the Quest for Classical Precision." Castellani and Italian Archaelogical Jewelry, pp. 190.
