Producing Silver Sheet According to Cellini

Abstract

During a short internship in The Hagues Municipal Museum, I noticed some blisters in a seventeenth century V.O.C.-dish. I thought they were gas bubbles which might have been introduced in the material during coagulation. When hammering to sheet the bubbles would take the shape of blisters which would turn visible during annealing. Why, however, were these shapes not visible on many other pieces? Had they not been annealed after completion or was this particular dish just a product of bad workmanship? I cannot imagine the possibility of keeping the metal free from gas bubbles during casting and it is similarly almost inconceivable that none of the pieces coming under my attention during the last few years had been annealed or soldered. Therefore, there might be a way to make the holes disappear as I was taught during my education to be a goldsmith. At that time I was too cautious to believe it. I certainly had, and still have today, no explanation by material science how gasses could be dissolved or transported in a metal structure.

Keywords

• silver
• metallurgy
• casting
• late middle ages
• the netherlands