What are chasing and repoussé?

Chasing and repoussé are the two halves of one craft: working decoration into sheet metal by pushing it, rather than cutting it away. In repoussé the metalworker pushes the design outward from the back, raising it into relief; in chasing they work from the front, sharpening and defining that relief and adding the fine detail. The words are usually said together because the techniques are usually used together. I met the craft as part of the silver trade at Hart’s in Chipping Campden, and the thing to understand first is that no metal is removed at all - a chased panel weighs exactly what the flat sheet weighed; the decoration is the same metal, moved.

The defining fact is that chasing and repoussé are displacement, not removal. The metal is stretched and pushed into shape with blunt punches, so the design stands proud on one side and is hollow on the other. That separates the craft cleanly from engraving and die-sinking, which cut metal away, and from casting, which pours a shape. Here the sheet keeps all its metal; only its form changes.

Repoussé and chasing are the front-and-back pairing within that. Repoussé (from the French for "pushed back") raises the bulk of the form from behind. Chasing (related to "enchase") then turns the piece over and works from the front to crisp the outlines, model the detail, and texture the ground. A finished panel - a coat of arms, a flower, a figure on a piece of silver - has usually been turned over many times, raised from behind and refined from the front in alternation.

Repoussé is the raising of the design from the back; chasing the refining of it from the front. Pitch is the firm, slightly yielding tar-like compound the metal is mounted on while it is worked, often held in a heavy pitch bowl that can be tilted to any angle. The punches (or chasing tools) are shaped steel rods - tracers, planishers, modelling and matting punches - struck with a chasing hammer. Annealing softens the metal again whenever the working hardens it. Snarling uses a sprung iron to raise relief in places a punch cannot reach from behind.

The design is drawn on the metal, which is then warmed and pressed onto the pitch so it is fully supported. The worker traces the outline with a tracer punch from the front, then takes the piece off the pitch, anneals it, reverses it, and re-beds it back-up to push the main forms outward with repoussé punches. Off the pitch, anneal, turn again, bed front-up, and chase the detail in. This cycle - work, anneal, re-pitch, turn - repeats as many times as the relief needs, because metal pushed too far without annealing splits.

It is slow, rhythmic, and judged entirely by hand and eye; the pitch under the metal is what makes it possible, holding the sheet firmly while still letting it stretch. Done well, the result is decoration that is part of the object’s own fabric - which is why chased silver has a depth and life that stamped or cast ornament rarely matches.

The archive met chasing and repoussé where they live - in the silver trade, at Hart Gold & Silversmiths in Chipping Campden, the surviving workshop of C. R. Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft, with David and William Hart. Decorative chasing belongs to the Arts and Crafts silver tradition that Hart’s carries, and it sits alongside the forming techniques described in the archive’s entry on silversmithing: raising makes the vessel, chasing and repoussé decorate it.

Chasing and repoussé survive as a specialist, decorative branch of silversmithing and the wider metal trades, held by a limited number of skilled hands. As with raising, the demand is at the high end - ceremonial and commissioned work, restoration, fine craft - and the skill is long to learn and largely invisible to the buyer, who sees the finished ornament and not the dozens of cycles of pitch and punch behind it. It is among the hand-skills that conservation and high-craft silver depend on, and that the trade has to keep teaching to keep alive.

It is learned at the bench, within silversmithing training and apprenticeship. The archive’s Learn a Craft directory and the silversmithing entry are the places to go on from here.

What is the difference between chasing and repoussé?
Repoussé works from the back of the metal, pushing the design outward into relief. Chasing works from the front, refining and defining that relief and adding detail. They are two halves of one process, usually used together: repoussé raises the form, chasing sharpens it.

What is the pitch used for in chasing?
The metal is mounted on a bed of pitch - a firm but slightly yielding tar-like compound, often in a pitch bowl. The pitch supports the metal while letting it stretch and move under the punches, so the worker can drive a controlled relief without the metal tearing or collapsing.

Is chasing and repoussé still practised in England?
Yes, as a decorative branch of silversmithing and the metal trades, though by a limited number of hands. The archive met the craft through the silversmiths at Hart in Chipping Campden, the surviving workshop of Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft.