GOLDSMITH'S WORK. Metal-work of the finest and most elaborate, though not always the most artistic sort, such as is done with gold, with electron or with silver gilt, which last is so much used in decorative art as to be admitted as a metal—the French vermeil being used in recent times in this sense alone. Goldsmith's work in cludes repouss6 work (q.v.), and soldering of part to part, including the attaching of minute balls or grains of gold, a system followed very largely in antiquity. It. includes also striking with the die and the punch, and saw-piercing, spinning, and other industrial processes especially in use in the making of cheaper and more showy work. Enameling is in use for all kinds of goldsmith's work, as an added adornment. Goldsmith's work is divisible into the two main departments of plate and jewelry, or the making of vessels and receptacles of all sorts on the one hand, and the making of personal adornments, on the other hand. There are some pieces of work that seem to hold a place half way between these departments; thus the making of watch-cases, if they are other than plain circular cases of no elaboration of ornament, that is, if they are embossed, incrusted with enamel, or set with jewels, may be very refined goldsmith's work, hard to classify. In this connection may be mentioned the peculiar technical matter of perfect box-making, a thing which is rare in European goldsmith's work. Thus a watch-case, twelve-sided or sixteen-sided instead of round, and with four or five separate rims and edges to fit one upon another, is a triumph if it has not visible flaws; and the best adjustment of very fine and delicate hinges is also a great virtue in fine work.
The most refined in design of all goldsmith's work is that done under Greek influence in an tiquity. Not many specimens of it remain, and we are ignorant how general was the use of the more difficult and delicate mechanical processes; for much of the gold found in tombs is roughly and slightly made, as if a mere simulacrum—a conferring upon the dead a mere semblance of the objects beloved during life. The few gold vase and similar large objects that have come down to us are of a period later than the central epoch of Greek art; moreover, they are generally the `finds' of explorers in remote provinces—Kertch on the Black Sea or in the Spanish Peninsula, or in the lands of the Lower Danube, like Petrossa, near Bucharest, in the Kingdom of Rumania. The goldsmith's work that we study most carefully for suggestions in design is that of the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance for the large pieces, like liturgical vessels, and that of the eighteenth century for small objects of personal use; but personal jewelry is, in the main, of modern origin in its design and manufacture. It is rare, how ever, to find in modern work any special artis tical merit. The demand for very costly stones set in a showy way by those who alone can afford to spend money liberally makes the evolu tion of highly organized design in metal-work very difficult. See JEWELRY.