Chairs for the Saloon at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton
These chairs are to return to the Royal Pavilion, once they have been re-gilded
Gilding the balls
Each ball is gilded individually – watch the short film below to see how this happens.
A close-up of one of the balls part-way through burnishingCopyright: Royal Collection Enterprises Limited
After gilding the balls are put back into place on the chairs. The final step is to burnish the gold: the gold leaf is compressed and smoothed using an agate burnisher until it takes on a highly polished appearance. The decoration on these chairs incorporates areas of both matt and burnished gold.
This image shows one of the balls which is halfway through this process. The left-hand side has been burnished, and is therefore shinier than the unworked right-hand side.
