Filigree (It. filigrana, from Lat. filum, thread, and granum, a grain), ornamental work in fine gold or silver wire, often made with little metallic beads or grains interspersed among the wires. The work may be complete in itself, or it maybe used, as is the common method, by applying the wire in flattened and twisted shapes upon the surfaces of the trinkets or whatever else it is designed to adorn, and soldering it there in the patterns of stems and leaves of plants. It is much practised by the Italians, who derived the art from the eastern nations. In the production of silver filigree, artistically wrought into bracelets, flowers, and other ornaments, the Genoese workmen stand unrivalled, and their productions are sent to all parts of the world. In Sumatra the manufacture of filigree has been carried to great perfection, although the tools employed are coarse and clumsy. The wire-drawing tool is made of a piece of wire hoop; an old hammer stuck in a block serves for an anvil. The gold is melted in a crucible over a fire, a joint of bamboo blown through by the workman being often the only bellows. When the filigree is finished they cleanse it by boiling in water with common salt, alum, and lime juice, and to give it the fine purple color they call saps they boil it in sulphur water.

The Chinese also make filigree, principally of silver, but of inferior elegance to the Malay work.