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Water Gilding
Water gilding refers to the application of genuine karat gold or silver leaf to a prepared substrate utilizing the process of evaporation and water activated animal protein glues. Characteristics unique to a water gilded surface would include: Presence of “lay lines” (the slight overlapping of each individual leaf as it is applied), burnished surfaces producing a mirror-like shine, and overall appearance depth and brilliance.
The water gilding method used by us here at GFA&F Co. is rooted in practices of the Renaissance. Originally, bright, lustrous gold treatment of a wooden surface was devised to conceal its true physical characteristics, to add the benefit of reflected light in an time period where only candles illuminated one’s surroundings, and to impart a great spirituality to the religious paintings, as well as the settings for which they were designed to be displayed.
The carved or otherwise hand-hewn wood was sealed with a heavy whiting and glue mixture called "gesso" (also used as a ground for painting), both to conceal grain character and to provide a semi-porous surface for the water based techniques that followed.
Coats of "bole", a finely ground mixture of selected clay minerals, pigment, glue and water were then applied. The glue (binder) used was resoluble in water and when reactivated by a wet brush formed a "size" to which gold leaf would adhere. This clay has an "eggshell" appearance in its freshly-applied state similar to casein (milk) paint. The significant property of the bole is its knap, which when polished (burnished) with a tooth or agate stone, will compress, and the gold will align with it to achieve a greater bond and higher luster.
Gold left untouched by the agate after it is applied to the dampened clay retains much of the same appearance it had when it was hammered between animal skins during its formation into leaves. This texture is described as "matte". Gold leaf which is applied and polished, as described, after it is allowed to dry is called "burnished" gold.
Today, because of technological developments, wide demand and vanishing supply, we work with a gold leaf much thinner than was available to our ancestors. The working processes, though, are very much the same.
In centuries, past where gold leaf was a preferred adornment for furniture, frames and architecture, the borrowing of forms between the professions was common. In the modern-era Metallurgy, welding, technology and plastic fabrication have brought forth innovations in framing. Reductionist approaches have led to simple, elegant designs for mouldings, yet the age-old, precise gilding techniques have been kept alive and the modern frame is often rubbed to emphasize the overlapping of individual leaves. Somehow this Renaissance craft has survived and flourished only in picture framing, as there seems to be no longer any major preference for it in new designs for furniture or architecture.