Garnet Bracelet in Gilded Sterling Silver (20.5 cm)

• Garnet - A garnet is a mineral that is commonly used as a gemstone. It occurs in a wide range of colours, including red, pink, orange, green, yellow, and black. The most common and best known type of garnet is the red variety, which has a deep, rich colour and is often referred to as a "garnet red."
  
  Garnets have a long history of use as gemstones, and they have been prized for their beauty and durability for thousands of years. They are often used in jewellery, such as rings, necklaces, and earrings, and they are also sometimes used as a decorative element in other items, such as vases and goblets.
  
  Garnets are prized for their brilliance, durability, and resistance to scratching, making them a popular choice for use in jewellery. They are also valued for their hardness, which makes them well suited for use in abrasive applications, such as sandpaper and grinding wheels.
• Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.
• Gilding - Gilding is a method of ornamentation whereby a thin sheet of gold metal is applied to items made of wood, leather, ceramics, glass and silver for decorative purposes.
  
  For furniture including mirrors, the sheet of gold is usually applied over a coating of gesso. Gesso is a mixture of plaster of Paris and gypsum mixed with water and then applied to the carved wooden frames of mirrors and picture frames as a base for applying the gold leaf. After numerous coats of gesso have been applied, allowed to dry and then sanded a coat of "bole", a usually red coloured mixture of clay and glue is brushed on and allowed to dry, after which the gold leaf is applied. Over time parts of the gilding will rub off so the base colour can be seen. In water gilding, this was generally a blue colour, while in oil gilding, the under layer was often yellow. In Victorian times, gilders frequently used red as a pigment beneath the gold leaf.
  
  Metal was often gilded by a process known as fire gilding. Gold mixed with mercury was applied and heated, causing the mercury to evaporate, the long-term effect of which was to kill or disable the craftsman or woman from mercury poisoning. The pursuit of beauty has claimed many victims, not the least of which were the artists who made those pieces so highly sought after today.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• bangles, garnet - garnet 31
• bracelets, material - other materials / styles 1,560
• bracelets, silver - silver and garnet 24