Guilloché

The name guilloché is French, dating back at least to the 1770s,^[4] and is often said to be called after a French engineer named Guillot, who invented a tool or turning machine. However no dates nor first name are provided for this shadowy figure, and many dictionaries seem suspicious of his existence.^[5]

Engine turning machines were first used in the 1500–1600s on soft materials such as ivory and wood. In the 18th century they were adopted for metals such as gold and silver.^[6][7] Some accounts give the credit of developing tightly-packed engraved guilloché decoration to the Nuremberg glass-making dynasty of the Schwanhardt family in the 17th century,^[8] using a wheel to engrave the glass.

Engine turning machines made of cast iron and heavy wooden bases, with precision machined surfaces were made until circa 1967 (e.g. Neuweiler und Engelsberger). Individuals continue the craft of making these elegant machines, but in limited quantities.^[9]

A Guilloche Machine was granted a US Patent in 1968 by Wilhelm Brandstatter.^[10] The original assignor was a firm called Maschinenfabrik Michael Kampf KG. A photo of this machine can be seen at Turati Lombardi's history page.^[11]

In the 1920s and '30s, automobile parts such as valve covers, which are atop the engine, were also engine-turned. Similarly, dashboards or the instrument panel of the same were often engine-turned. Customizers also would decorate their vehicles with engine-turning panels similarly.

Guilloche describes a narrow instance of guilloche: a design, frequently architectural, using two curved bands that interlace in a pattern around a central space. Some dictionaries give only this definition of guilloche, although others include the broader meaning associated with guilloché as a second meaning. Note that in the original sense, even a straight line can be guilloché, and persons using the French spelling and pronunciation generally intend the broader, original meaning.^[12][13][14] Translucent enamel was applied over guilloché metal by Peter Carl Fabergé on the Fabergé eggs and other pieces from the 1880s.^[15]

In consequence of the nature of the design, which is usually a series of lines that are, or look very much like they are interwoven into one another, any design engraved on metal, printed, or otherwise erected on surfaces such as wood or stone, that go in a similar style of constant wriggling that interlock – or look like they are interlocking – with one another, is referred to as guilloché.

Some of the more common ones are the following:

• Engraved (in metal, mainly sterling): in fine timepieces (mainly pocket watches), fine pens, jewelry charms, snuffboxes, hair-styling accessories, wine goblets etc. Examples of famous works of Guilloché are the engravings on Fabergé eggs.
• Erected: on stone for architecture, in wood for styling, on furniture or molding, etc.
• Printed: on bank notes, currency or certificates, etc., to protect against forged copies. The pattern used in this instance is called a spirograph in mathematics, that is, a hypotrochoid generated by a fixed point on a circle rolling inside a fixed circle. It has parametric equations. These patterns bear a strong resemblance to the designs produced on the Spirograph, a children's toy.

The engine turning machine characteristic of guilloché is called by other names in specific uses:

• Rose engine (metalwork)
• Straight line engine turning Tour à guilloché (metalwork)
• Holtzapffel lathe, named after the founder of an ornamental lathe manufacturer John Jacob Holtzapffel
• Decoration lathe (metalwork)
• Damaskeening (watch movements and horology)
• Geometric lathe (security printing)
• Cycloidal engine (security printing)
• Ornamental turning or ornamental lathe (woodcarving).

The different types of the machines refer to different models and different times during the development of the engine-turning machine.

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  A red guilloché enamel Boule de Genève
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  Guilloche work with enamel
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  Bouquet of Lilies Fabergé Egg
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  Solar guilloche pattern on a watch movement crown wheel
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  Barley guilloche pattern on a watch movement main plate

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  Assyrian tile with a guilloché border from the North-West Palace at Nimrud (now in modern Iraq), 883-859 BC, glazed earthenware, British Museum, London^[16]
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  19th century illustration of multiple polychrome elements of Ancient Greek architecture, including a guillochés on the right, by Jacques Ignace Hittorff
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  Ancient Greek guilloché on an Ionic column of the Erechtheion, Athens, Greece, unknown architect, 421-405 BC^[17]
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  Ancient Greek guilloché on a gorytos, 400-336 BC, silver and gold, Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai, Vergina, Greece^[18]
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  Roman guilloché on the base of a column of the Trajaneum from Pergamon, now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany, unknown architect, 115-30 AD
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  Roman guilloché on the Orpheus mosaic from the dining room of a Roman house, c.200, natural stone and glass, Pergamon Museum
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  Roman guilloché on a shield, mid 3rd century, painted wood and hide, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, US^[19]
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  Renaissance guillochés on some pilasters, part of the Sala dei Gigli frescos, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1482-1484
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  Renaissance guillochés on a pharmacy jar called The Campaigns of Julius Caesar, 1580–1581, maiolica (tin-glazed earthenware), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
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  Baroque guilloché on a cabinet, André Charles Boulle, c.1700, oak veneered with Macassar and Gabon ebony, ebonized fruitwood, burl wood, and marquetry of tortoiseshell and brass, gilt bronze, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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  Rococo guilloché on a tureen with cover, Edme-Pierre Balzac, 1757–1759, silver, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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  Neoclassical guillochés on a tripod vase, by Wedgwood, c.1805, jasperware, Brooklyn Museum, New York City
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  Neoclassical guilloché on a wall in the Neues Museum, Berlin, by Friedrich August Stüler, 1843-1855
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  Neoclassical guilloché on the door of Strada Grigore Cobălcescu no. 6, Bucharest, Romania, unknown architect, c.1910
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  Postmodern guillochés on the Harold Washington Library, Chicago, by Hammond, Beeby & Babka, 1991^[20]

• Basse-taille
• Cloisonné
• Filigree
• Fretwork
• Geometric lathe
• Moire (fabric)
• Ornamental turning
• Roulette curve
• Security printing
• Spirograph

 

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• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Guilloche". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.