Letter from Plenderleith to Schaeffer answering his various requests and his technical report on the sectionHarold James Plenderleith

Technique

In the course of restoration it became obvious that the cup had been raised from the flat and that, after ornamentation, the wish-bone handle had been rivetted in position, albeit rather asymmetrically, by two groups of three silver rivets. The decoration around the bowl and on the handle had been worked out in niello and gold on a ground which was carefully prepared beforehand to receive it by the use of chasing tools.

At this early period (13th century B.C.(?)) niello was

Handwritten: 14th

virtually a new medium and it would almost seem as if the craftsman was feeling his way in an experimental fashion as two very different methods of working are illustrated. According to the first,which is shown in the flower patterns separating the animal heads (and elsewhere),there has been a conscious attempt to draw the forms in detail in the silver using chasing tools. Shaped pieces of gold have been laid over these forms and fixed by tooling the edges into the foundation metal.

1. [figure: sequence of four profile sketches of chasing and gold setting; labels: Groove made by chasing tool. / Foundation prepared / Gold set in position / Gold fixed prior to covering field with niello]

2.

3.

4.

Figure 4 shows two adjacent flower patterns. The lower one has been stripped of its ornament and the foundation design is revealed tooled in the metal. The upper flower shows four gold inlays surrounded by a very thin layer of niello. The row of gold dots around the edge of the cup illustrates the second method of working but the process is better followed on a damaged area such as that illustrated in Figure 5 . Here we see a channel chased in the silver to a depth of 0.017 inch, i.e. about

Handwritten: (0.43mm.)

half its [handwritten: this] thickness [handwritten: of the cup.] This is filled with niello in which is embedded the gold ornament. The question is, was the niello and gold fired together in one operation or was the niello first fired and then cut to receive the gold? Before attempting to supply an answer we should recollect that niello is the product of a workshop recipe and not a chemical compound with fixed properties. It would be wrong, therefore, to close our minds to the possibility that some niello compositions might be more suited to one technique than the other. A property which, however, is essential