Guilloché (or Guilloche) is a decorative engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically engraved into an underlying material with fine detail. Specifically, it involves a technique of engine turning, called guilloché in French after the French engineer “Guillot”, who invented a machine “that could scratch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces”. The machine, called a rose engine, improved upon the more time-consuming practice of making similar designs by hand, allowing for greater delicacy, precision, and closeness of the line, as well as greater speed.
Yet another account is that it derives from the French word for an engraving tool, not the engine turning machine.
A guilloche is a repetitive architectural pattern used in classical Greece and Rome, and neo-classical architecture as well as medieval Cosmatesque stone inlay work, of two ribbons winding around a series of regular central points. These central points are often blank, but may contain a figure, such as a rose. Guilloche is a back-formation from guilloché, so called because the architectural motif resembles the designs produced by Guilloche techniques.
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