The treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture

Chapter 73: FOOTNOTES:

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About This Book

A combined manual of goldsmithing and sculpture lays out practical, workshop-focused instructions and recipes for metalworking processes, including niello, filigree, enamelling, gem setting, diamond cutting and tinting, gilding, etching, medal making, various casting methods for vessels and large bronze figures, and furnace construction. Chapters present step-by-step procedures, material preparations, tool use, and formulas for chemical treatments and colours. Technical anecdotes and illustrative examples appear throughout, conveying common workshop problems and their solutions in an informal, spoken-register voice. The work functions as both a craftsman's handbook and a record of traditional techniques and workshop practice.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE MANNER OF APPLYING THE SAID COLOUR.

Let your work be dried with a clean cloth, then by means of a few feathers streak it over with the above concoction in the same way as you did when colouring the gold with the verdigris mixture. Then put it on the fire. When you see it drying and beginning to steam hard (do not let it steam quite dry) dip it in cold water. Then clean it up, & once again let it simmer slowly in the tartar solution[189] for such space as you may say an Ave Maria; yet again clean it in water and polish it where you will. This gives the loveliest gilding and of the most beautiful colour that can be made, and lasts for ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[189] Bollire freddo nella grommata.