FILIGREE
Existing for many centuries, the art of filigree found its origin in the Far East.
This ancestral technique, known as far back as the Greek and Roman civilisations, was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Mediterranean peoples who migrated to Western territories.
In Portugal, one of the most ancient known traces of filigree work were a pair of earrings found at Citânia de Briteiros, an Iron Age settlement located near Braga in the northern part of the country.
Pieces of the same style and period were found at other archaeological sites in the same region. The curious thing about these pieces of jewellery is that they were found in an area that still has an active goldsmith industry today, or more precisely an industry dedicated exclusively to the production of filigree pieces.
Although Portuguese goldsmiths had not lost their skill and knowledge of this technique by then, its use gained new life from the Portuguese discovery period onwards. Today, the production of filigree is aimed not only at the domestic buyer but also the professional and tourism markets, where the demand for this kind of jewellery has been steadily increasing.