celebrating 27 years of excellence!
celebrating 27 years of excellence!
AN OVERVIEW
Gold. The ancient metal of the gods. A pure metal found by early man to
be very workable in its naturally occurring pure state, allowing its creative
use by craftsmen for the last 11,000 years! Having been revered for objects
of worship for millennia it is now the material of choice of people across
the globe for their expressions of love for one another. Luxurious, lustrous,
sensual Gold!
GOLD
The chemical element gold, atomic number 79, symbol Au (from the Latin aurum),
is a soft, lustrous yellow, malleable metal. It is one of the transition
metals and its atomic weight is 196.967; it belongs to group 1B in the periodic
table along with copper and silver.
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
It is commonly alloyed with other metals, as in jewelry, in
proportions that yield desired hardness and colors. An alloy of gold, silver,
and copper, in which the amounts of silver predominates, is called "green
gold." An alloy of the same three elements in which copper predominates
is called "red gold." An alloy of gold and nickel is called "white
gold." The purity of alloyed gold is expressed by the karat system,
where the percent of gold by weight is given as a fraction of 24. Therefore,
pure gold is 24 karat (.999), whereas 18-karat gold is 18/24, or 75% (.750),
gold by weight, 14-karat gold is 14/24, or 58% (.584). Elemental gold has
a melting point of 1,063 deg. C and a boiling point of 2,966 deg. C. In
addition to its softness, it is both the most malleable and most ductile
of all elements. This means that it can be hammered into extremely thin
sheets (approaching a small number of atoms) and can be drawn into extremely
fine wire. Gold in the form of very thin sheets, called gold leaf, has many
decorative uses.
OCCURRENCE
Although the Earth's crust averages a mere 0.004 grams of
gold per ton, commercial concentrations of gold are found in areas distributed
widely over the globe. Gold occurs in association with ores of copper and
lead, in quartz veins, in the gravel of stream beds, and with pyrites (iron
sulfide). Seawater contains astonishing quantities of gold, but the process
of recovery is not economical. The ancients found quantities of gold in
Ophir, Sheba, Uphaz, Parvaim, Arabia, India, and Spain. By the first century
AD, written reports were made of deposits in Thrace, Italy, and Anatolia.
Gold is also found in Wales, in Hungary, in the Ural Mountains of Russia,
and, in large quantities, in Australia.
The greatest early surge in gold recovery followed the first voyage of Columbus.
From 1492 to 1600, Central and South America, Mexico, and the islands of
the Caribbean Sea contributed significant quantities of gold to world commerce.
Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, and Hispaniola contributed 61% of the world's
newfound gold during the 17th century. In the 18th century they supplied
80%.
Following the discovery (1848) of gold in California, North America became
the world's major supplier of the metal. From 1850 to 1875 more gold was
discovered than in the previous 350 years. By 1890 the gold fields of Alaska
and the Yukon edged out those in the western United States, and soon the
African Transvaal exceeded even these. Today the world's unmined reserves
are estimated at 1 billion troy oz (31 billion g), about half in the Witwatersrand
area of the Republic of South Africa.
The distribution of gold seems to validate the theory that gold was carried
toward the Earth's surface from great depths by geologic activity, perhaps
with other metals as a solid solution within molten rock. After this solid
solution cooled, its gold content was spread through such a great volume
of rock that large fragments were unusual; this theory explains why much
of the world's gold is in small, often microscopic particles. The theory
also explains why small amounts of gold are widespread in all igneous rocks;
they are rarely chemically combined and seldom in quantities rich enough
to be called an ore.
MINING
Gold is obtained by two principal mining methods--placer and
vein mining--and also as a by-product of the mining of other metals. Placer
mining is used when the metal is found in unconsolidated deposits of sand
and gravel from which gold can be easily separated due to its high density.
The sand and gravel are suspended in moving water; the much heavier metal
sinks to the bottom and is separated by hand. The simplest method, called
panning, is to swirl the mixture in a pan rapidly enough to carry the water
and most of the gravel and sand over the edge while the gold remains on
the bottom. Panning is the classic method used by the forty-niners and is
immortalized in story, art, and song. Much more efficient is a sluice box,
a U-shaped trough with a gentle slope and transverse bars firmly attached
to the trough bottom. The bars, which extend from side to side, catch the
heaviest particles and prevent their being washed down slope. Sand and gravel
are placed in the high end, the gate to a water supply is opened, and the
lighter material is washed through the sluice box and out the lower end.
The materials caught behind the bars are gleaned to recover the gold. A
similar arrangement catches the metal on wool, and may have been the origin
of the legend of Jason's search for the Golden Fleece. Another variation
of the placer method is called hydraulic mining. A very strong stream of
water is directed at natural sand and gravel banks, causing them to be washed
away. The suspended materials are treated much as if they were in a giant
sluice box. Today's most important placer technique is dredging. In this
method a shovel of several cubic meters capacity lifts the unconsolidated
sand and gravel from its resting place and starts the placer process.
Vein, or lode mining, is the most important of all gold recovery methods.
Although each ounce of gold recovered requires the processing of about 100,000
ounces of ore, there is so much gold deposited in rock veins that this method
accounts for more than half of the world's total gold production today.
The gold in the veins may be of microscopic particle size, in nuggets or
sheets, or in gold compounds. Regardless of how it is found, the ore requires
extensive extraction and refining.
One-third of all gold is produced as a by-product of copper, lead, and zinc
production. Copper, for example, must be electrolytically refined to raise
its purity from 99% to more than 99.99% as required for many industrial
purposes. In the refining process an anode of impure copper is electrolyzed
in a bath in which the cathode is a very thin sheet of highly refined copper.
As the process continues, copper ions leave the impure anode and are deposited
as atoms on the cathode. Because impurities are not transported through
the bath, as the anode is consumed, the impurities fall to the bottom as
a sludge. This anode sludge contains gold in quantities sufficient to make
recovery profitable. One-third of all gold is obtained from such by-products.
Silver and platinum are also recovered from the copper anode sludge in quantities
large enough to more than pay for the total refining process.
EXTRATION AND REFINING
In obtaining gold from vein ore, the ore is first crushed
in rod or ball mills. This process reduces the ore to a powdery substance
from which the gold can be extracted by amalgamation with mercury or by
placer procedures. About 70% is recovered at this point. The remainder is
dissolved in dilute solutions of sodium cyanide or calcium cyanide. The
addition of metallic zinc to these solutions causes metallic gold to precipitate.
This precipitate is refined by smelting. The purification is completed by
electrolysis and the sludge produced will contain commercial quantities
of silver, platinum, osmium, and other rare-earth metals.
USES OF GOLD
Because of its poor chemical reactivity, gold was one of the first two or
three metals (along with copper and silver) used by humans in these metals'
elemental states. Because it is relatively unreactive, it was found uncombined
and required no previously developed knowledge of refining. Gold was probably
used in decorative arts before 9000 BC. Even civilizations that developed
little or no use of other metals prized gold for its beauty.
One of the principal uses of gold today is as a currency reserve. Gold was
for centuries used directly as currency along with silver. During the 19th
century it assumed a role as the sole basis of the currencies of most nations;
paper money was directly convertible into gold. World War I disrupted this
system. The original gold standard was gradually abandoned (the United States
stopped minting gold coinage in 1934), and the dollar eventually emerged
as the principal unit of international monetary transactions. Since the
1970s gold has been bought and sold on the market, with widely fluctuating
prices, and gold reserves maintain only a very indirect relationship with
the values of currencies.
There is a large and rapidly growing demand for gold in industrial processes.
Its relatively high electrical conductivity and extremely high resistance
to corrosion make the metal critically important in micro electrical circuits.
Minute quantities dissolved in glass or plastic sheets prevent the passage
of infrared radiation and make an efficient heat shield. Because of its
chemical stability, gold is in demand for bearings used in corrosive atmospheres.
It is also plated on surfaces exposed to corrosive fluids or vapors. Its
lack of toxicity and its compatibility with living systems make it indispensable
in dentistry and medicine, and its beauty and workability has made it outstanding
in the arts since ancient times.
HISTORY OF GOLD JEWELRY
The character of the jewelry of a particular culture depends
greatly on the raw materials that a region provides, on its climate--which
dictates the nature of the clothing worn--and on its customs, both social
and religious. Thus an abundance of gold and jade have determined the styles
and symbolic uses of the jewelry of South and Central America. In India
jewelry serves as both traditional decoration and as a family's financial
investment. In the tropical regions of Africa, Central America, and the
Pacific, jewelry is virtually all that is worn. In Japan, a country with
a superb metalworking tradition, jewelry is hardly used however, except
for women's hair ornaments consisting of pins and combs of bamboo and lacquered
wood.
THE ANCIENT WORLD
Virtually all modern kinds of jewelry--necklaces, earrings,
rings, bracelets, and their ornaments--were in use as early as 2500 BC in
the Sumerian civilization. Excavation of the royal tombs at Ur in Iraq has
uncovered sophisticated jewelry such as a woman's headdress consisting of
sheet-gold pendants on strings of lapis lazuli (c.2500 BC; British Museum,
London). Sumerian goldsmiths used sophisticated metalworking techniques;
cold hammering, casting, soldering, cloisonne, and particularly decorating
with filigree (fine-wire ornamentation) and granulation, the use of minute
drops of gold.
Jewelry had begun to play an important role in Egyptian civilization by
about 3000 BC. A wall painting from a Theban tomb of the late 15th century
BC depicts a metalworker using tongs and a blowpipe to anneal gold. Alongside
him other men are drilling stone beads with bow drills while another threads
a bead collar. The tomb of Tutankhamun (r. 14th century BC) contained numerous
pieces of fine gold jewelry embedded with precious stones.
The art of fashioning gold jewelry reached the Mediterranean island of Crete
from western Asia about 2400 BC. Diadems, hair ornaments, beads, bracelets,
and complex chains have been found in Minoan tombs. Asian techniques of
filigree and granulation were introduced to Crete about 2000 BC, and evidence
also indicates that Egyptian styles influenced Minoan jewelry. Minoan culture
and its jewelry styles spread to the mainland of Greece, then dominated
by the city-state of Mycenea, about 1550 BC.
Metalworking techniques reached northern Europe by about 2000 BC, and the
earliest jewelry found there dates from between 1800 and 1400 BC. These
artifacts include lunulae (spectacular, crescent-shaped neck ornaments of
beaten gold), most of which were found in graves in Ireland, where gold
was once plentiful. There is evidence that the Celtic and early British
people were trading with the eastern Mediterranean races by this time, exchanging
gold for faience beads.
By 1200 BC jewelry making was flourishing in central and western Europe,
where bronze as well as gold was frequently used to make jewelry, and the
spiral was the most common motif of decoration. The fibula-brooch seems
to have been invented at this time. Twisted gold torcs, modeled on Scandinavian
bronze prototypes, were made in the British Isles and northern France from
the 5th to the 1st century BC. These massive circlets for the necks and
arms were the characteristic ornament of the chiefs of the Celtic race.
Celtic craftsmen also used enamel and inlay to decorate jewelry.
By the 7th century BC the Etruscans of central Italy were also making fine
gold jewelry. These people may have migrated from Anatolia, whence their
metalworking skills seem to have been derived. The Etruscans brought to
perfection the difficult technique of granulation, whereby the surface of
the metal is covered with tiny gold grains.
Gold was plentiful in Greece during the Hellenistic Age (323-30 BC), and
Greek jewelry of this period is characterized by its great variety of forms
and fine workmanship. Naturalistic wreaths and diadems were made for the
head, and a variety of miniature human, animal, and plant forms were made
up into necklaces and earrings. The so-called Heracles-knot, of amuletic
origin, was introduced, and remained a popular motif into Roman times. In
the 3d century BC polychrome effects were achieved in gold jewelry by the
use of colored stones and glass. At first garnets, chalcedonies, and carnelians
were used and later emeralds, amethysts, and pearls. The engraving of cameos
also began at this time.
Jewelry continued to be made in Greek styles during the early Roman Empire,
when the chief centers of production were Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome,
to which Greek craftsmen had migrated. There was an increasing emphasis
on the decorative use of stones and a relaxation of standards in gold work.
For the first time the hardest stones were used--uncut but polished diamonds,
sapphires, and, notably, emeralds from newly discovered Egyptian mines.
Colorful jewelry was a striking characteristic of the Migration period (4th
to 8th centuries AD), which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. Mediterranean
goldsmiths continued to produce jewelry of great refinement, but the jewelry
of the European tribes dominates this period. They produced abstract styles
of great splendor which were worked in enamels and inlaid stones. The fibula-brooch
reached extremes of size and elaboration. This is also the period of the
penannular, or nearly circular, brooches of Ireland and Scotland, the finest-known
example of which is the early-8th-century Tara Brooch (National Museum of
Ireland, Dublin). From the 9th to the 13th century the technique of cloisonne
enameling on gold was widespread, the finest pieces emanating from the workshops
at Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE
After the creation of Charlemagne's empire in AD 800 and the
Holy Roman Empire in 962, a fusion of northern and Mediterranean cultures
occurred. The principal patrons of the arts became the emperor and the church,
and jewelers worked in courts and monasteries. Jewelry design was based
on the setting in gold of precious stones and pearls in colorful patterns.
Precious stones, which were polished but still used in their natural form,
were credited with talismanic powers; for instance, the sapphire, symbolic
of chastity and spiritual peace, was used for papal rings. Antique cameo
gems were especially prized and often set in early medieval jewelry and
given a Christian interpretation. Until this time European jewelry had been
produced mainly in imperial and monastic workshops, but by the 13th century
a system of independent guilds of goldsmiths had become established in European
capitals, which suggests that the craft had become more widespread.
Gothic jewelry reflects the chivalrous ethic of aristocratic society in
its symbolism and frequent use of amatory inscriptions. Jewelry, which has
always had close affinities with modes of dress, frequently took the form
of brooches and other fastenings such as belt clasps. The ring brooch, the
most common form of jewelry in the 13th century, was probably given as a
token of love or betrothal. A pendant would occasionally be used as a Reliquary.
The use of earrings ceased entirely, because women wore elaborate jeweled
headdresses that concealed the ears. About 1300, French jewelers began to
use translucent enamels over engraved silver or gold.
In the 14th and 15th centuries jewelry was an important feature of both
male and female attire. Notably fashionable during the first half of the
15th century were jewels composed of enameled gold figures, flowers, and
foliage modeled in high relief and frequently interspersed with clusters
of pearls. These exquisite works of art--which include The Lennox, or Darnley
Jewel, of enameled gold set with sapphires (c.1570; Collection of Her Majesty
the Queen, London)--are among the finest jewels ever made.
The affluence of the Spanish court during the 16th century, which was based
on gold from colonies in the New World, set a standard for the other princely
courts of Europe. At this time the art of engraving on metal was perfected,
and thus designers were able to print and disseminate their ideas throughout
Europe, with the result that it is extremely difficult to attribute 16th-century
jewels to any particular country by their style. The earliest of these designers
were Virgil Solis (1514-62) and Erasmus Hornick (c.1540-c.1583) of Nuremberg
and the Frenchman Etienne Delaune (1520-c.1595). The most striking and influential
of Hornick's designs were for figurative pendants of legendary subjects.
A slightly later development of this style of pendant included a framework
of abstract ornament or architectural elements, which dominated the form
of the jewel and usually rendered it symmetrical. The engraved designs of
Hans Collaert (1540-1622) are typical of this style, which seems to have
been used principally by south German jewelers. The most famous artist-goldsmith
of this period was Benvenuto Cellini, who worked first in his native Italy
and later for Francis I of France. Cellini is known mainly through his autobiography
and his sculpture; no jewelry has survived that can be ascribed to him with
certainty.
FROM THE 17TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
Figurative designs became less fashionable in the 17th century,
when there was a shift of interest to formal designs using faceted gems
and pearls. The uncut, or cabochon, gem is rarely found in jewelry after
1640. The Golconda diamond mines were opened in India during the 17th century,
and Dutch merchants supplied diamonds for the European market. Consequently,
Amsterdam became the center for the trading and cutting of gems and has
remained so. By the middle of the 17th century the new, many-faceted "rose"
style of cutting had superseded the old, square "table" cut. Stones
were set in close proximity, and their settings played a smaller part in
the overall effect. Silver was frequently used with diamonds to make the
setting less visible. Delicate floral designs in enamel were used to decorate
the backs of finer jewels. Since this time diamonds have tended to dominate
jewelry.
Gilles Legare (fl. c.1660), court jeweler to Louis XIV of France, was responsible
for some of the finest designs of the late 17th century. Louis XIV was the
last monarch to wear large numbers of jewels. Among Legare's designs are
the Sevigne, or bow ornament, a form of jewelry that has never lost its
popularity, and girandole pendants, a form used for brooches and earrings
that remained fashionable until the end of the 18th century. Black-enameled
mourning jewelry and the memento mori jewel, a reminder of human mortality,
reflected the somber Counter-Reformation mentality of the 17th century.
Eighteenth-century fashions were lighter and more frivolous. The sparkle
of diamonds cut in the new "brilliant" style, invented in Venice
between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, echoed
the glitter of the cut-crystal chandeliers at evening festivities. Other
innovations of the period included the informal spray of flowers entirely
formed of stones, a type of jewel that required the utmost skill of the
jeweler, and parures, matched sets of jewels consisting of necklace, earrings,
and brooches or clasps of various sizes. Although, from 1725, there was
an abundant new source of diamonds in Brazil, there was also a large demand
for imitation, or paste, diamonds. Paris, the fashion center of the world,
was severely disrupted by the French Revolution of 1789, and diamonds became
unfashionable during the period of austere republicanism that followed,
when only simple gold jewelry inspired by classical antiquity was worn.
Neoclassical designs were well suited to the imperial pomp of the First Empire (1804-14) of Napoleon I. His wife, Josephine, had a passion for antique cameos, which she had made into magnificent parures. Ornamental combs, worn at the back of the head, were added to parures. diamonds soon returned to favor in the Napoleonic court, and there was a renewed interest in colored stones; but these were worn in rigidly formal settings, unlike those of the 18th century. The jewelry of the period immediately following the First Empire was bourgeois in character, as was every other decorative art. The fashion was for light filigree, or mechanically stamped-out gold jewelry, set with pale-colored semiprecious stones that produced a rich effect at a comparatively low cost. This style originated in Britain, where the domestically minded and sentimental Queen Victoria set the mood for British society. Much Victorian jewelry, such as lockets and brooches incorporating miniature portraits or locks of hair, was sentimental in feeling and low in intrinsic value. The Victorian enthusiasm for keepsakes led to a curious fashion for wearing jewelry made of woven human hair.
Nineteenth-century design was dominated by historical revivals. The Gothic
revival inspired outstanding jewelry by Francois Desire Froment-Meurice
(1802-55) in France and the architect A. W. N. Pugin (1812-52) in England.
France's fortunes increased with industrialization and, during the brief
period of the Second Empire of Napoleon III (1852-70), the Parisian jewelers
again rose to great heights of achievement. The Empress Eugenie had a preference
for 18th-century styles and favored diamonds and pearls. Diamond setting
reached a peak of technical virtuosity in the late 1860s with the monture
illusion, an elaborate gem-encrusted framework associated with the jeweler
Oscar Massin. During the same period, a vogue for archaeologically correct
jewelry originated in Italy, following discoveries of Greek, Roman, and
Etruscan gold jewelry.
South African diamonds were first brought to Europe in 1869 and supplied
an enormous market for jewelry among the newly rich of the United States
and South America, who were principally interested in displaying their wealth.
Large and valuable stones were often set in solitaire or as necklaces of
single stones, called rivieres. A somewhat mechanical technical excellence
prevailed, and jewelry making became increasingly industrialized. The later
prosperity of the 19th century also encouraged the growth of large commercial
establishments that produced jewelry of superb craftsmanship. The most famous
of these firms were those of Peter Carl Faberge, which originated in Saint
Petersburg, Russia, and of Charles Lewis Tiffany in New York.
A movement devoted to reforming the applied arts came into being in the
last half of the 19th century and began to affect jewelry about 1895. Although
this development originated in the British Arts and Craft movement, the
most progressive jeweler was the Frenchman Rene Lalique. His work was a
return to the true goldsmith's tradition, and his designs in the Art Nouveau
style can best be compared in brilliance to the imaginative jewelry of the
Renaissance, although they are profoundly original and owe little to past
styles.
The profession of the artist-jeweler has become firmly established in the
20th century, notably in Scandinavia, where Georg Jensen (1866-1935) set
a high standard of artistry and craftsmanship in his simple mass-produced
jewelry. Jewelry from the prestigious international houses, such as Cartier,
Chaumet, Boucheron, Van Cleef and Arpels, and Tiffany, continue the conservative
tradition of formal gem-set jewelry in which more regard is paid to ostentatious
display than innovatory design. The future of jewelry is perhaps in the
hands of the numerous independent artist-jewelers working in many parts
of the world, who are now beginning to receive deserved attention from the
public.
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