Belt buckle
Accessories
Inventory number
2022.4.27.5ab.AC.BL.C1900.RUDescription
Russian Imperial niello sterling silver belt buckle from the Caucasus region. The accessory is ornately engraved, consisting of two parts, with miniature dagger. The dagger is connected to the buckle with a chain, and it's used to secure the buckle by being inserted through a bracket on the top.Niello is a black mixture used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver. Since 10th AD, Kievan Rus' craftsmen possessed a high degree of skill in jewellery making. The Kievan Rus technique for niello application was first shaping silver or gold by tooling work, embossing, and casting. They would raise objects in high relief and fill the background with niello using a mixture of red copper, lead, silver, potash, borax, sulphur which was liquefied and poured into concave surfaces before being fired in a furnace. The heat of the furnace would blacken the niello and make the other ornamentation stand out more vividly. Later, Veliky Ustyug in North Russia, Tula and Moscow produced high quality pictorial niello pieces such as snuff boxes in contemporary styles such as Rococo and Neoclassicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; by then Russia was virtually the only part of Europe regularly using niello in fashionable styles.
Material
SilverOrigin
circa 1900 Russian EmpireDimensions
Length : 7 cmHeight : 5 cm