''Pointillé'' is a decorative technique in which patterns are formed on a surface by a means of punched dots. The technique is similar to embossing or

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

but is done manually and does not cut into the surface being decorated. ''Pointillé'' was commonly used to decorate arms and armor starting in the fifteenth century. The

Holy Thorn Reliquary The Holy Thorn Reliquary was probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns. The reliquary was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1898 by Ferdinand de Rothschild as part of the Waddesd ...

in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, made in France at the end of the 14th century, has very fine and delicate ''pointillé'' work in gold.

Common uses

''Pointillé'' is commonly used for intricate binding of hand-made book covers in the seventeenth century, the decoration of metallic arms and armor, and for the decoration of hand-finished firearms.

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Artistic techniques {{decorative-art-stub

Common uses

References

Further reading

External links