Gilding

I am currently a student in metal conservation at the Netherlands
Institute for Cultural Heritage. During my internship at the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam I have seen quite a few silver objects with
delaminating (fire) gilding. Therefore I'm doing a research on "the
influence of conservation treatments on delaminating gilding on
silver artefacts", as  part of my final thesis.

To do this research I will need silver coupons that have been fire
gilded. In the Netherlands I can't find any company that can help me
with this. I would like to know if there is still any company
(preferably in Europe) that still fire gilds. Also any information
about mercury/fire/amalgam- gilding and the delamination of gildings
on silver is more than welcome. I'm also very curious to know if the
delamination of gilding on silver artefacts is a common problem.

Ellen van Bork


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:7
                   Distributed: Friday, July 25, 2008
                        Message Id: cdl-22-7-014
                                  ***