The allure of granulation

Granulation is a highly sophisticated goldsmithing technique in which minute balls of gold are fused to a gold ground in such a way that each touches the ground minimally, only at the point of contact, leaving each little ball seen at close range as an autonomous form.

The earliest extant works executed in the granulation technique are more than five thousand years old. These masterly ancient works were rediscovered during excavations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were so fascinating because the granulation technique had been virtually forgotten in modern Europe. All attempts at imitating the ancient works failed. Only in c.1920 did Johann Michael Wilm (1885–1963), a German goldsmith, unravel the secrets of the technique and revive it for modern use.

This breakthrough inspired Elisabeth Treskow (1898–1992) to have a go at granulation herself – successfully. The worldwide spread of her knowledge of granulation made it become so popular that Treskow was credited with having rediscovered the ancient technique herself. She donated her personal collection of ancient and contemporary work executed in the granulation technique to the MAKK in 1977.