Elena Beňušová
What is involved in jewellery smelting? For those who witnessed it, it might have been a rather ordinary process. However, for contemporary jewellery artists this technology is something of a rarity. Jewellery artists, engaged in smelting, produced traditional jewellery from metals poured into a form prepared in advance. This was possible especially in the case of soft metals, such as brass, tin, copper or lead, and their alloys. Alongside some, if not many, craftsmen, such jewellery was being made mostly at home by self-taught individuals, especially shepherds, bell founders and blacksmiths. They produced it for their own use, as well as for other people living in their community, and also – rather often – for sale in regular markets or in markets held during saint days, pilgrimages, etc. They worked predominantly with cheap but nonetheless high-quality materials, making use of old, time-tested technologies and decoration techniques. All the time, they stayed true to original, archaic shapes of products, using them as inspiration for new decorative elements, too. Folk jewellery production in Slovakia became extinct after the Second World War due to the abolition of small enterprises. Thanks to ÚĽUV, technical skills of folk producers are being kept alive, their products still in demand.