From the Latin word "Nigalum", Niello antique art is from the 18th through the early 20th century time periods. Niello is the antique process of a decorated inlay of detailed pictures or even segments of stories intricately done upon various types of precious metal objects, with Silver being the most common metal of Niello antique.
The technique of Niello is a process of filling silver engraving with unique mixture of silver, lead, copper and sulfur. The difference in amounts of sulfur is the main deciding factor of shade differentiations. This type of artwork, is most always found upon useful or somewhat decorate, but yet practical types of objects for the time period. For example, Niello decorated jewelry was warn and a Niello silver lid and glass hair receptacle was used for a lady’s hair to be saved out of her hair brush for later hair weavings to be warn as a hair piece decorative add on.
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These various Niello decorations could be of fine detail or repetitive images as long as it was inlayed of metal and sulfur differences to make up the details desired.
Although Niello forms of decoration has been found as far back as the Bronze Age, in many different countries and time periods all over the world, it’s peak was the 18th through the early 20th centuries. There are differences with agreement upon the Niello origin, with some experts saying origin was in Egypt during the period of 1500 B.C. – c. 1292 B.C. One of the earliest found of Niello is a silver cup originating in Cyprus around 1400 B.C. There are other examples dating back to the 1400th – 1200th Century B.C. from Syria. Although very rare, European Niello has on occasion been dated back to the 5th and 6th Centuries.
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