Word Finder - niello

definition

Any of various black metal alloys, made of sulphur with copper, silver or lead, used to create decorative designs on other metals.

definition

An impression on paper taken from the engraved or incised surface before the niello alloy has been inlaid.

definition

To decorate (a surface) using this technique.

Most of these works in bronze were enriched with fine lines inlaid in silver, and in some cases with a kind of niello or enamel.

The Museo Civico is housed in the Palazzo Malaspina and contains many interesting national relics and a small picture gallery, with a large collection of offprints on paper from niello plates, including a very fine "Fountain of Love" by Antonio Pollainolo; another fine old palace, the Palazzo Mezzabarba, is now used as the Municipio.

In some cases it is very difficult to distinguish niello from black enamel.; but the black substance differs from true enamel in being metallic, not vitreous.

When the powder had become thoroughly liquid, so as to fill all the lines, the plate was allowed to cool, and the whole surface was scraped, so as to remove the superfluous niello, leaving only what had sunk into and filled up the engraved pattern.

This process was chiefly used for silver work, on account of the vivid contrast between the whiteness of the silver and the darkness of the niello.

As the slightest scratch upon the metal received the niello, and became a distinct black line, ornament of the most minute and refined description could easily be produced.

The dress and armour have patterns partly inlaid in silver and partly in niello.

The dark tint of the bronze rather prevents the niello from showing out distinctly.

It is a silver casket or lady's toilet box, in which were found an ampulla and other small objects, enriched with niello-work.5 From Roman times till the end of the 16th century the art of working in niello seems to have been constantly practised in some part at least of Europe, while in Russia and India it has survived to the present day.

Niello is frequently mentioned in the inventories of the treasures belonging to the great basilicas of Rome and Byzantium.

Mark's, Venice, 10th century, owes much of its refined beauty to niello patterns in the borders.

Among the early Teutonic and Celtic races, especially from the 8th to the 11th centuries, both in Britain and other countries, niello was ' Div.

The British Museum possesses a fine fibula of silver decorated with a simple pattern in niello and thin plates of repousse gold.

Several interesting gold rings of Saxon workmanship have been found at different times, on which the owner's name and ornamental patterns are formed in gold with a background of niello.

The metal-workers of Ireland, whose skill was quite unrivalled, practised largely the art of niello from the Toth to the 12th century, and posGold and Niello Ring 'sibly even earlier.

Vasari's account of this invention, given in his lives of Pollaiuolo and Maso Finiguerra, is very interesting, but he is wrong in asserting that Maso was the first worker in niello who took proofs or impressions of his plates.

It is a pax with a very rich and delicate niello picture of the coronation of the Virgin; the composition is very full, and the work almost microscopic in minuteness; it was made in 1452.

The British Museum possesses the finest existing example of 15th-century German niello.

It has a fine brick campanile and brick decoration, and contains a bronze triptych of 1358 in niello, with the Virgin and Child.