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Modern Malian fine silver pendant and chain

Posted by Ethnic Embellishments on December 6, 2012 at 12:42am

Amazing granulation done in an ancient tradition- work in gold is also done this way. I suspect that the super-fine granulation is done by fusing silver shavings to the surface. Fusing was an ancient technique used before soldering. It is difficult as one must heat the entire piece to red hot in order to assure that the granulation fused and does not fall off. There is a fine line between heating the silver high enough and melting the entire piece completely. Soldering allows for silver to be heated to a lower temperature and as the solder has a lower melting point, there is less risk in melting a piece, however, soldered joints are less stable than fused ones.

Comments

Eva Baby December 6, 2012 at 7:25pm

Nice item, have never seen such in Mali, very interesting information about how this is being done! I can imagine that it is not easy to just get at the right point to fuse it and not melt the whole. Is this attributed to a special ethnical group or just a modern piece? (If an ethnical group, I could only imagine the Peul, but I do not know - just guessing).

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