Guilloche Silver

Guilloché is an engraving technique in which a very precise and intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically etched into an underlying material with very fine detail.

Specifically, it involves a technique of engine turning, called guilloché in French after the French engineer "Guillot", who invented a machine "that could scratch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces".The machine improved upon the more time-consuming practice of making similar designs by hand, allowing for greater delicacy, precision, and closeness of the line, as well as greater speed.

Another account gives the credit of inventing this method to one Hans Schwanhardt (- 1621) and the spreading of it, to his son-in-law Jacob Heppner (1645).

Yet another account is that it derives from the French word for an engraving tool, not the engine turning machine.

Guilloche, (often anglicized in English pronunciation as 'gi-'lOsh'), describes a repetitive architectural pattern widely used in classical Greece and Rome, consisting of two ribbons that wind around a series of regular central points. These central points are often blank, but may contain a figure, such as a rose. Guilloche is a back-formation from guilloché, so called because the architectural motif resembles the designs produced by Guilloche techniques.

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