Sterling silver pendant with Roman coin reproduction in oxidized silver

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

01

Reproduced Roman coin

The coin is the reproduction of a Roman coin, made in bronze or in silver depending on the piece, and there is nothing ancient about it. What is reproduced is a low relief — a head in profile, a few letters round the edge — and in a low relief a tenth of a millimeter is the whole difference between a profile that reads and a smudge. The blank that comes out is higher at the center than at the edge, anything but a flat disc, and the edge itself is not an exact circle. That is what decides the mount. The frame closes on the edge, where the metal is steadier and where there is no design to cover, and it is tightened cold — a flame passed over the field of the coin would flatten the very relief it is being mounted for, and a flattened relief does not rise again.

02

Oxidizing

The silver is darkened on purpose, and then polished back only where the light has to return. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the light on the raised work: it is a drawing made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.

03

Hammered frame

The frame is hammered once it has already been shaped, and every blow leaves a crooked facet that catches the light on its own. With no design to follow, you keep the rhythm and stop before the edge thins, because beaten metal spreads and gives exactly where it has been struck most often. That is why no two frames ever come out identical, and why the last blow is decided by looking, not by counting.