UNMARKED, LATE 18TH OR EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Filigree, from the Latin words filum (thread) and granum (grain), is the art of drawing out of metal, usually silver, into increasingly fine threads that can then be rolled, bent or braided into intricate openwork patterns. In a recent exhibition devoted to the subject held in Amsterdam, Silver: Wonders of the East, Filigree of the Tsars, 2006, the filigree objects from the Russian Imperial collections were re-assembled from the different Russian museums and storerooms to which they had been dispersed over the years to regain a sense of the importance and magnificence of filigree objects in European royal and princely collections.