FILIGREE, or FILIGRANE, work, a kind of enrichment on gold or silver, wrought deli- cately, in manner of little threads or grains, or both in- termixed. The word is compounded of fil or filum "thread," and granum "grain." In Latin it is called filatum elaboratum opus, argentum, aurum.

There is no manufacture in any part of the world, that has been more admired and celebrated, than the fine gold and silver fillagree of Sumatra. And what renders it a matter of greater curiosity is the coarseness of the tools employed in the workmanship, and which, in the hands of an European, would not be thought sufficiently perfect for the most ordinary purposes.— They are rudely and inartificially formed, by the gold- smith (pandi), from any old iron he can pick up. When you engage one of them to execute a piece of work, his first request is usually for a piece of iron hoop, to make his wire drawing instrument; an old hammer head, stuck in a block, serves for an anvil; and a pair of compasses is often composed of two old nails tied together at one end. The gold is melted in a piece of a preo or earthen rice-pot, or sometimes in a crucible of their own make, of ordinary clay. In general they use no bellows, but blow the fire with their mouth, through a joint of bamboo; and if the quantity of metal to be melted is considerable, three or four persons sit round their furnace, which is an old broken quillie or iron pot, and blow together. At Padang alone, where the manufacture is more consid- erable, they have adopted the Chinese bellows. Their method of drawing the wire differs but little from that used by European workmen. When drawn to a suf- ficient fineness, they flatten it by beating it on their anvil; and when flattened, they give it a twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle, by rub- bing it on a block of wood with a flat stick. After twisting they again beat it on the anvil, and by these means it becomes flat wire with indented edges. With a pair of nippers they fold down the end of the wire, and thus form a leaf, or element of a flower in their work, which is cut off. The end is again folded and cut off, till they have got a sufficient number of leaves, which are all laid on singly. Patterns of the flowers or foliage, in which there is not very much variety, are prepa- red on paper, of the size of the gold plate on which the fillagree is to be laid. According to this, they begin to dipole on the plate the larger compartments of the fo- liage, for which they use plain flat wire of a larger size, and fill them up with the leaves before mentioned. To fix the work, they employ a glutinous substance, made of the red hot berry called boca fogo, ground to a pulp on a rough stone. This pulp they place on a young co- coa-nut about the size of a walnut, the top and bottom being cut off. After the leaves have been all placed in order, and stuck on, bit by bit, a folder is prepared of gold-silings and borax, moistened with water, which they throw over the plate; and then putting it in the fire for a short time, the whole becomes united. This kind of work on a gold plate, they call carrang papans; when the work is open, they call it carrang trouje. In executing the latter, the foliage is laid out on a card, or soft kind of wood, and stuck on, as before describ- ed, with the fogo berry; and the work, when finish- ed, being strewed over with their folder, is put into the fire, when the card or soft wood burning away, the gold remains connected. If the piece be large, they folder it at several times. In the manufacture of bad- joo buttons, they first make the lower part flat, and ha- ving a mould formed of a piece of buffalo's horn, in- dented to several sizes, each like one half of a bullet mould, they lay their work over one of these holes, and with a horn punch they press it into the form of the button. After this they complete the upper part. When the fillagree is finished, they cleanse it, by boil- ing it in water with common salt and alum, or some- times lime juice; and in order to give it that fine purple colour which they call fogo, they boil it in water with brimstone. The manner of making the little balls with which their works are sometimes ornamented, is as follows. They take a piece of charcoal, and having cut it flat and smooth, they make in it a small hole, which they fill with gold dust, and this melted in the fire becomes a little ball. They are very inexpert at finishing and polishing the plain parts, hinges, screws, and the like, being in this as much excelled by the Eu- ropean artists, as these fall short of them in the fineness and minuteness of the foliage. The Chinese also make fillagree mostly of silver, which looks elegant, but wants likewise the extraordinary delicacy of the Malay work. The price of the workmanship depends upon the diffi- culty or uncommonness of the pattern. In some arti- cles of usual demand, it does not exceed one third of the value of the gold; but in matters of fancy, it is generally equal to it.