Goldbeating techniques are used to hammer gold into extremely thin leaves for Buddhist image or household article decoration. The goldbeating techniques of Nanjing are unique and technically demanding. They are regarded as special traditional techniques of China.

The goldbeating industry of Nanjing originated from the areas around Longtan Garden of Qixia District. Today, a dozen or so working processes handed down from ancient times are still being used in gold foil production. The beating procedure is the most difficult one, during which a gold block must be beaten into leaves as thin as 0.1micron. Then, two goldbeaters, each holding a hammer weighing 3.5 kilos, will beat the leaves in turn for more than 25,000 times to make gold foil as thin as a cicada’s wings, as soft as silk and as light as a feather.

According to estimation, the gold foil made of a gram of 24K gold can cover as much as half a square meter when fully expanded. During the goldbeating process, the gold leaves must be wrapped in a kind of special black paper before being beaten for thousands of times. The black paper must be impact and high temperature resistant, thin but not easily broken. By combining the age-old traditional processes with modern technology, goldbeaters today have replaced manual beating with beating machines. Thus, the making procedures are simplified, but some processes still need to be done manually.

Traditionally, gilding is mainly used to decorate palaces and temples. Currently, gold foil made in Nanjing is widely used and developed in areas like food, cosmetics, construction, industrial art and decoration etc. Meanwhile, the gold foil enjoys good sales across the world.