Bracelet

Bracelet made up of twelve pairs of convex links decorated with damascene Toledo. Pressure clasp. \Eusebio Zuloaga introduced this technique in Eibar in the middle of the 19th century, a craft that would also develop thanks to the impulse of his son, Plácido Zuloaga. The inspiration came from pieces made with this technique that were kept in the Armoury of the Royal Palace in Madrid. It was Plácido who called damascene the art of inlaying silver and gold in steel or blued iron work, due to the fact that the armour he had brought from the Royal Palace belonged to a warrior from Damascus (Syria). In Eibar, this technique was especially used to make pieces of furniture and all kinds of weapons. In 1875, a group of workers from Eibar settled in Toledo, thus giving rise to the relationship between damascene and the city of the Tagus. However, two periods of splendour of damascene work can be distinguished in Eibar: the first between 1910 and 1914, when the ornaments and jewellery produced in Eibar caused a furore all over Europe; and the second between 1941 and 1950, when damascene objects became one of the Spanish (and Toledo) souvenirs par excellence.