The Essence of Bali Jewelry
As purchasers of jewelry, we should familiarize ourselves as much as possible with the techniques used in creating our beautiful jewelry pieces so as to better enjoy the essence of the pieces. Bali silversmiths have a very special talent in creating items that are attractive both in looks and in concept. In creating their masterpieces of jewelry, the Bali silversmith uses techniques of granulation which are the application of tiny dots, scrolls and lines to the surface of their jewelry to decorate the pieces.
Bali silversmiths make molds into which they pour molten silver or gold to create the base shape of the jewelry piece. Once the foundation piece cools, they then decorate it with the tiny spheres via granulation. One of the secrets in determining whether a piece of Bali jewelry is authentic is to examine it closely to determine if the decorations appear to be part of the molding process or whether they are rough appearing to have been fused or soldered once the piece has cooled. If the dots or lines on a piece of jewelry bleed into one another, it’s likely that the silver was poured into a mold that had indentations for the surface design.
Granulation, the technique used by the Bali silversmiths, is an ancient jewelry technique where the surface of a piece of jewelry is decorated with small spheres of the same precious metal arranged in a pattern making the piece unique and attactive. Metal alloys above 18 karat gold and sterling silver are best for applying the technique.
At the simplistic level, granulation is the application of one of three techniques to adhere small spheres of precious metal to the piece’s surface. These three techniques are hard soldering, fusing and colloidal soldering. When solder is used, it tends to fill in the corners and fuse the finer details of the design. For this reason, Bali Silversmiths use a fusion technique. In the finest jewelry created through granulation, fusion, the tiny spheres are attached to the surface of the piece only at small contact point where the surfaces are fused making them appear to float on the surface of the piece like tiny balls on a smooth surface.
Granulation is the essence of Bali jewelry. Carefully select your pieces of this jewelry ensuring that they are the result of granulation.
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