DAMASCENE WORK. The damask, da mascene, or damascus work, so often met with in choice specimens of metal manufacture, especially on the old Damascus sword-blades, is a method of producing a pattern or design by encrusting one metal with another. It was introduced into Europe from the Levant, where it was much practised in the middle ages, especially at Damascus. The metals usually employed were silver or gold on iron or copper, gold on silver, or silver ou gold ; but any other combination would equally come within the principle of the art.
There were several different modes of da mascening. If the metal to be damascened were hard, its surface was wrought into fine lines crossing each other, and the designs were afterwards traced upon it ; the design marks were filled in with the metal inlay, which was fixed by a strong pressure or by hammering ; and the entire work was then burnished, by which the lines uncovered by the incrustation were erased, and a fine polish given to the surface. Another method was that'of hatch ing the incised lines only, and of fixing the incrustation as before. In a third method, when the incrusting metal was of a ductile nature, the pattern was simply incised in out line, and the body of the design left on the same level as the rest of the surface; a thin sheet of metal was then laid upon these de signs, and fixed by the insertion of its edges into the exterior incisions ; the incrustation was thus in relief, and was afterwards occasi onally engraved. A fourth kind of damascene
work partook of the nature of picga, or a de sign formed by small pins or studs, much in vogue in England in the seventeenth century.
Various European cities had artists who practised damascening ; but Venice and Milan were the chief.
At the Mediaeval Exhibition of 1850, seve ral beautiful specimens of damascene-work were collected, including candlesticks, tan kards, inkstands, shields, etuis, swords, Sze.; but the most exquisite was Cellini's fin-famed shield, presented by Francis I. to Henry VIII., and now the property of Her Majesty. It is made of embossed steel, damascened with gold and silver. It has represented upon it in compartments, scenes from the history of Julius Caesar, each consisting of numerous figures in relief of the most highly finished execution.