dust on gilding

[VisualThinker7@zzzzzzz]

It's important to distinguish between static electricity, which caused dust
and lint to adhere to surfaces, and current electricity.

I suspect that the act of polishing metal, or rubbing metal on, as with  gold
leaf, causes a static charge to appear. Rubbing, especially to produce a
shiny surface, aligns the metal molecules (in this case the atoms of gold) in a
uniform direction, creating the slight electrical potential which is just
strong  enough to hold dust, but not a true electrical current.

Perhaps something as mundane as rubbing the gold with a common Anti Static
Cloth, such as the ones used to prevent fogging on auto windshields, or to
eliminate static in laundry dryers, would work.