Ormolu

Ormolu (pronounced awr-muh-loo)

(1) Gilded metal, especially cast brass or bronze gilded over fire with an amalgam of gold and mercury, used for furniture mounts and ornamental objects (slso called bronze doré or gilt bronze).

(2) An alloy of copper, tin or zinc used to imitate gold (also called mosaic gold).

(3) Gold or gold powder prepared for use in gilding.

(4) A descriptor of objects prepared using the technique (as a modifier).

1755–1765: From the French moulu (ground gold), the source being the Latin aurum (gold) + moulu, past participle of moudre (to grind) from the Old French moudre from the Latin molere, present active infinitive of molō.  Molō was from the primitive Indo-European melh- (to grind, crush) and cognate with the Latin mollis, the Ancient Greek μύλη (múlē) and the English meal; it’s also the source of the English maelstrom.  The verb forms are ormolus (third-person singular simple present), ormoluing (present participle) and ormolued (simple past and past participle).

Deadly

Used mostly for the decorative mountings of furniture, clocks, candlesticks, chandeliers and porcelain, ormolu was a technique of gilding used to apply a finely-ground, high-carat gold–mercury amalgam to objects made from an alloy (typically bronze).  The method used high-temperature kilns to remove the mercury, leaving behind a gold coating and in French, was called bronze doré, in English, gilt bronze.  It’s associated especially French Empire clocks (those of the First Empire the most admired) but was also used in nineteenth century English workshops.

The process, sometimes colloquially called mercury-gilding or fire-gilding, was both labor-intensive and dangerous because craftsmen, many of who died young, were exposed to the toxic mercury emissions from the kilns.  A variety of helmet-like devices were used in an attempt to ameliorate the dangers but none were very effective and, after the revolution of 1830 and the overthrow of Charles X (1757–1836; King of France 1824-1830), the process was outlawed in France but use continued well into the twentieth century, some factories operating as late as the 1960s.  The process has been supplanted by modern techniques such as electroplating.

French ormolu and pink porcelain clock set Garniture (1795) by Jean-Baptiste André Furet (circa 1720-1807) in the style of François Rémond (1747-1812).