Medieval Goldsmiths were one of the most important of craftsmen
because they worked in precious metals, they worked in gold and silver
Always the object of the goldsmith was to make
as impressive an object for the church as he could
The techniques that the golsmiths used, they were quite varied
engraving metal to produce patterns, often floral patterns
there was obviously hammering metal
hammering metal from behind which is called repousse
Repousse is a French word which means to push from the back
I've chosen to use an ancient technique in my modern designs
because I love the timelessness of repousse
I love the evidence of tool marks, the hand of the maker
and the intimate creation process
One of the objects that fascinated me in the exhibition was
the reliquary casket of St Adrian and Natalia
not only because it's an exquisite example of medieval repousse
but it's a captivating story as well
where Natalia's husband is martyred and she's so proud of his martyrdom
that she carries his severed hand with her back to sea
and takes it in her bed
So I thought I would replicate the techniques that the medieval craftsmen used
and make the hand, the severed hand of Adrian
So this is an enlargement of St Adrian being martyred
I'm going to do a low relief of St Adrian's hand here
to show you the techniques that a medieval craftsmen might have used
to create this beautiful object
I'd start with a sheet of fine silver and cut the size piece that I need off the silver
and then I would transfer the design and then I will scribe the outline
with a fine steel scribing tool
so I can see where I'm going when I move over to the chasing station
There's this fascinating development of reliquaries
as shaped like the parts of body that the bone came from
We've seen the parts of feet, arms, heads or fingers
presumably to enhance its value and its authority as a relic
Great, so now chasing is finished
it's time to put it in the pitch pot for the repousse
So now I don't need to heat the metal because it's already been annealed
but what I do need to do is heat the pitch
Pitch is basically pine resin, tallow, brick dust and other materials
melted into this compound that when it's heated becomes sticky as tar
and when it's cold it's hard as wood
The idea of pitch is that it gives you a resistant surface
to do the repousse work into without hammering the metal flat like a steel block would
So that's why I've inverted the piece in the pitch
I'm going to work from the reverse of it, the negative
I'm going to push the relief down into the pitch
and hope that from experience that it's going to look
something like the finished relief that's my objective
This is a fantastic reliquary of St Anastasia
the structure is of silver but it's decorated partly with gilding and partly with niello
Niello is a silver sulphide that hardens and looks rather like a sort of black enamel
The doors would actually open so that the faithful could actually see the relic inside
And each of them is decorated, each door is decorated with crosses
and exquisite little knobs that the priest could open
The architecture is composed of openings
repousse arches, doors and the little chapels at each end
Repousse is a wonderful way of working metal
because you can create a relief scene from one continuous piece of metal
and materials used to work with as you've seen are very basic and accessible
and essentially unchanged since the ancient Egyptians
So it's a techniques that was used a lot in the Middle Ages, all through history
and I like to think that I carry on a little bit of that heritage in the work that i do