TOREUTICS. - The art of working metals by casting, hammering, engraving, chasing, etc.
Especially with regard to antiquity, the term is used to denote the activity and work of artists who modelled, cast, and chased objects in bronze, but more generally also to indicate the artistic working of any other metal, from iron to the noblest and most precious (v. SCULTURA). Thus for ancient Egypt, Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, Villanovan civilization itself, Etruscan, Greek, etc. In early Greek art, wooden sculptures with applied metal sheets are likewise considered works of t., whereas for subsequent periods the term is restricted to the activity of repoussé workers, engravers, damasceners, and goldsmiths, who have always fashioned domestic furnishings and objects intended for worship with artistic purposes. Middle Ages (v.) as in subsequent periods (v. ARTE; RINASCIMENTO), when the evolution of taste left evidence of the highest value both in bronze sculpture and in works of goldsmithery (v.).