Jewelery “Religious Goldsmith and Silversmith”

Jewelery “Religious Goldsmith and Silversmith” in Spain

Country of the crafting: Spain
Region of the crafting: Andalucía
Town of the crafting: Málaga
Type of the crafting: Jewellery

1. Geographic Area
This activity is done in all Andalucias region, but more specifically in Málaga (a south city). It’s practised also in little villages of the province, but the citizens are more poor than the churches of the capital, then the thrones are smaller. Examples of the villages are Archidona, Antequera, Ronda.

2. Craft characteristics
The activity “Religious Goldsmith and Silversmith” consist of a group of specialized people who mold and manufacture precious metals like gold or silver to decorate the thrones of the Catholic Virgin and Jesus. It’s a hard work because it’s not easy to find the metals and to have the ability to mold and design the metals to get the figure wanted.

3. The technique
To realise this activity there is a technique that includes many processes that are: The fussion of gross material (the mix of the different primaries materials ), purifying the metal and melting it (they purify the metal and finally melt it to have an easier management), hammering and battening (they cocked the metal to get more pieces), cutting (they cut the pieces cuted in other smaller ), polishing (they polish the pieces that hasn’t been cuted well), platting and gilding (they cover the metals of gold or silver to make it shine), making mechanical joints and assemblies (they make and join the silver or gold to design figures), welding (finally they weld the big pieces to the throne to fix them safely), etc…

Also there are other technique s for the decoration of the thrones, such as tipping (is like a tip over technique , to mix the different tones of colours of the gold or silver), printing (this technique is done by professional artists and consist of tax for example pictures of God or Jesus’s History around the throne), filigree (to define the most details of gold/silver ), granulated (like little perfections to make it shine more), etc.

4. Used Materials
For this activity is not enough with the materials, also we need specific tools. The main materials are the metals, the gold or the silver, the mold shapes to design what we want, a chart with scales to size what are the exact measurements, a measuring tape, and also before start doing nothing it’s essential to draw a sketch to know more less which is the result we want.

The tools that are essential are pliers, a magnifying glass, a polisher, a hammer…

5. History
This activity began in the Ancient Times in Andalucía, in the south of Spain. But with the time passed and in the Renaissance it continues with its splendour. And finally it was expanded around the country. In this way a lot of sculptors create their own “Goldsmith/Silversmith Business” and now, in the actuality, it’s a tradition to celebrate “Semana Santa” in Spain, specifically in Andalucía. There are many churches and cathedrals that buy to these businesses the huge thrones to their parish to put on the sculptures (Scenes of Jesus’s History).

6. Youtube Videos
Here we’ve a video where there is explained by some goldsmith specialists and we can see some of their sculptures: