Gilding
Gold, silver and aluminum leaf, laid by hand one sheet at a time.
Metal, laid by hand.
A sheet of gold leaf is about a ten thousandth of a millimeter thick and moves in any air current in the room. It is picked up on a gilder's tip and laid one leaf at a time, and where the sheets overlap is part of how the surface reads. The method has held for several hundred years.
How it’s Made.
There are two ways to lay leaf and the surface decides which one. Water gilding goes over gesso and colored bole, set with gilder's liquor, then burnished with an agate stone. It is the only method that can be burnished, which is why it is the only one that reaches a true mirror finish. Oil gilding cannot be burnished, but it goes onto far more surfaces and holds up to site conditions, which makes it the method for ceilings, moldings and anything architectural.
Once the leaf is down it can be left bright, toned back with glaze, antiqued, or distressed to reveal the bole beneath.
The Methods
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Leaf over gesso and bole, burnished with an agate stone to a mirror finish. Interior work, and mostly furniture, frames and ornament.
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Leaf onto size at tack. It cannot be burnished, but it goes onto almost anything and stands up to site conditions. The method for ceilings, moldings and architectural work.
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Ornament built up in gesso and then gilded, so the pattern catches light along its edges and goes dark in the recesses.
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Leaf applied to the reverse of glass, named for Jean-Baptiste Glomy, the eighteenth century Paris framer who popularized it. Depth on the back, a wipeable surface on the front.
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Silvered by hand and antiqued panel by panel, to whatever degree of age is wanted, so no two match. Made to size for backsplashes, cabinet inserts, bar backs, panelled walls and furniture doors.
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Gold in several karats, silver, palladium, aluminum and Dutch metal.
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