FILIGRANE, Filigree, or Fillagree, Work, a kind of enrichment on gold or silver, wrought delicately in the manner of little threads or grains, or both intermixed. The word is compounded of fil οrjilum, a thread, and granum, a grain, and in Latin is called filatim elaboratum opus, argentum, aurum.

There is no manufacture in any part of the world which has been more admired and celebrated than the fine gold and silver fillagree of Sumatra; and what renders it a matter of still greater curiosity, is the coarseness of the tools employed in the workmanship, and which, in the hands of an European, would not be thought sufficiently perfect for the most ordinary purposes. They are rudely and inartificially formed by the goldsmith, from any piece of old iron which he can pick up. When one of them is engaged to execute a piece of work, his first request is usually for a piece of iron hoop to make his wire-drawing instrument; an old hammer head, stuck in a block, serves him for an anvil; and his pair of compasses is often composed of two old nails tied together at one end. The gold is melted in a piece of ρreeoo or earthen rice-pot, or sometimes in a crucible of ordinary clay. In general no bellows are used, but the fire is blown with the mouth, through a joint of bamboo; and if the quantity of metal to be melted is considerable, three or four persons sit round the furnace, which is an old broken quallee or iron pot, and blow together. At Padang alone, where the manufacture is most considerable, they have adopted the Chinese bellows. The method of drawing the wire differs but little from that which is used by European workmen. When drawn to a sufficient fineness, it is flattened by beating it on the anvil; and when flattened, a twist is given to it like that in the whalebone handle of a punch ladle, by rubbing it on a block of wood with a flat stick. After twisting they again beat it upon the anvil, and thus it becomes flattened wire with indented edges. The end of the wire is folded down with a pair of pincers, and thus is formed a leaf, or element of a flower in their work, which is cut off. The end is again folded and cut off, till they have got a sufficient number of leaves, yhich are laid on singly. Patterns of the flowers or foliage, ιn which there is seldom much variety, are prepared on paper of the size of the gold plate on which the fillagree is to be laid. According to these, they begin to dispose on the plate the larger compartments of the foliage, for which they use plain flattened wire of a larger size, and fill it up with the leaves before mentioned. In order to fix the work, they employ a gelatinous substance, made of the red-hot berry called boca sago, ground to a pulp on a rough stone, which pulp they place on a young cocoa nut about the size oτ a walnut, the top and bottom being cut off. After the leaves have been all placed in order, and stuck on bit by bit, a solder is prepared of gold filings and borax moistened with water, which is strewed over the plate, when it is put in the fire for a short time, and the whole becomes united. This kind of work on a gold plate is called carrang papan; but when the work is open, it is called carrang trouse. In executing the latter, the foliage is laid out upon a card, or soft kind of wood, and stuck on, as before described, with the sago berry; and the work, when finished, being strewed over with the solder, is put into the fire, when the card or soft wood burning away, the gold remains connected. If the piece be large it is soldered at several times. In the manufacture of badjoo buttons, they first make the lower part flat, and having a mould formed of a piece of buffalo’s horn, indented to several sizes, each like one half of a bullet mould, they lay their work over one of these holes, and with a horn punch press it into the form of a button; after which they complete the upper part. When the fillagree is finished they cleanse it by boiling it in water with common salt and alum, or sometimes lime juice; and in order to give it that fine purple colour which they call sapo, they boil it in water mixed with brimstone. The manner of making the little balls with which their works are sometimes ornamented, is simple. They take a piece of charcoal, and having cut it flat and smooth, make in it a small hole, which they fill with gold dust, and this being melted in the fire, becomes a little ball. They are very inexpert at finishing and polishing the plain parts, hinges, screws, and the like, being in this as much excelled by the European artists as the latter fall short of them in the fineness and minuteness of the foliage. The Chinese also make fillagree mostly of silver, which looks elegant, but wants the extraordinary delicacy of the Malay work. The price of the workmanship depends upon the difficulty or uncommonness of the pattern. In some articles of usual demand it does not exceed one third of the value of the gold, but in matters of fancy it is generally equal to that of the metal.