Art of Esfahan: Silver Work

By appearing civilizations and discovering metal, different applications of this material, whose most important subdivisions included gold, iron, and silver, were known. The civilized people applied iron to make their weapons; and gold and silver to make dishes, statues, medals, and their ornaments. The art of making metal has started since that time and is still keeping on.

During the history, making precious metal has been dependant on various cultures, Customs and tribal religions while the masters of this art have made their efforts in this line.

Silver has always been taken into special consideration as one of the valuable metals Available in the nature. It is a shining, illuminating and polish able metal being able to reflect light better than other materials, therefore, it has been applied in mirror making as its primary application; in other words, mirror is a thin layer of silver kept by a glass sheet.

The specific gravity of silver is 10.5. it melts at 960 and boils at 2000 centigrade . It also conducts electricity better than all other metals (regardless gold). Silver is so soft as to bear hammer blows and able to widen and sheet as thin as 0.003 Millimeter. Its property of turning into thin strings is so high that we can make 260 meters of silver string with 0.01 gram of it.

Silver can tolerate chemical very well being reluctant to combine with other materials. Silver is resistant against water and oxygen and acids. (Only sulfuric acid can effect on it). Therefore, silver can be applied in such industries as medical, electricity and also in making handy crafts as dishes and ornaments.

The procedure of making silver material is as follows:

First, the silver bars extracted from mines are melted along with copper. The special alloy made through this process is then changed to thin sheets or bars. They are, after that, hammered on the anvils to be reshaped that way the master wishes. These jobs, having been hammered, have rough surfaces needing to lose a thin layer. Which is usually called charkhkari by silver workers .At this stage; the jobs are ready to be engraved, therefore, behind or inside the dishes are covered with thick layer of tar so that they get hard enough to be prepared for engraving. After that, the artist engraves his design on them.

Now it should be mentioned that carving is a job different from engraving, for engraving is performed on stone and wood too. However, engraving is performed only on Metal, thus it is of more consideration.

Having finished the engraving job, the engraver master will remove off the tar and soften the surface of the work, witch is locally called as Lahimkari .Then the engraved dishes will be bleached with some special materials and brushed with metal brushes and published with soft sand. In the end, those parts of the job not engraved yet will be published by special steel tools.

Source:isfahan.ir

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Art of Esfahan: Silver Work