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Gilding

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Gilding is the art of applying a thin layer of gold or something simulating gold to a surface.

Products employed may be real gold leaf ranging in karats from 9 (white gold) up to 24; imitation leaf-composition gold, Dutch metal leaf, aluminum leaf, copper leaf; variegated leaf, mica powders; etc.

This art was known to the ancients. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were accustomed to gilding wood and metals; and gilding by means of gold plates is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. Pliny the Elder informs us that the first gilding seen at Rome was after the destruction of Carthage, under the censorship of Lucius Mummius, when the Romans began to gild the ceilings of their temples and palaces, the Capitol being the first place on which this process was used. But he adds that luxury advanced on them so rapidly that in very little time you might see all, even private and poor people, gild the walls, vaults, and other parts of their dwellings. Owing to the comparative thickness of the gold leaf used in ancient gilding, the traces of it which yet remain are remarkably brilliant and solid.

Gilding has in all times occupied an important place in the ornamental arts of Oriental countries; and the native processes pursued in India at the present day may be taken as typical of the arts as practised from the earliest periods.