Leather wallpaper
Leather wallpaper is a type of wallpaper used in various styles for wall covering. It is often referred to as wrought leather.[1] It is often gilded, painted and decorated. Leather was used to cover and decorate sections of walls in the houses of the rich, and some public buildings. Leather is pliable and could be decorated in various ways.
Cuir de Cordoue, or cordwain or cordovan (meaning: "from
History
Cuir de Cordoue originated from North Africa and was introduced to Spain as early as the ninth century. In Spain such embossed leather hangings were known as guadamecí, from the Libyan town of Ghadames, while cordobanes ("cordovan") signified soft goat leather.[2] In 1316, a Cuir de Cordoue guild existed in Barcelona. Spanish gold leather was popular until the early seventeenth century.
In the fifteenth or sixteenth century, the technique reached the Low Countries, first in Flanders and Brabant, where it was further developed. Though there were craftsmen in several cities (such as Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent), the major handicraft center for gold leather was Mechelen, where it was mentioned as early as 1504. In the Dutch Republic gold leather-making flourished in the seventeenth century in Amsterdam, The Hague and Middelburg. In Amsterdam, at least eleven gold leather-makers were active. One of them, Hans le Maire, because of the smell, the need for water, wind and light, working at the edge of the city[3] or in Vreeland,[4] used up to 16,000 hides of calves and some 170,000 leaves of silver annually.[5]
Dutch Cuir de Cordoue was exported to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, China and Japan. The last Amsterdam gold leather merchant Willem van den Heuvel closed around 1680, but the trade and production continued in Flanders and Northern France.
With the advent of printed wallpaper from about 1650, often imported from China as well as made in Europe, the far more expensive leather wallcoverings began to decline, though they continued to be used, in a rather revivalist sprit, in very luxurious homes.
Embossed wall coverings made to imitate antique embossed leather include Tynecastle, or Modeled Canvas. It was developed and patented in 1874 by designer W. Scott Morton (1840–1903). It was made by hand pressing canvas into carved wooden molds and dry it. It was colored after it was stuck to the wall.[6]
Japanese Leather Paper imitates embossed leather. It is crafted from sheets of handmade paper pressed together. It is then embossed and gilded with the field color stenciled on it. A coat of lacquer was added to protect it and create a sheen.[6]
During the colonial period in the United States, embossed leather panels were occasionally used as an accent, as a
Technique
Cuir de Cordoba was usually made of fine leather; often calf skins were used. The technique consisted of shaping panels of wet leather over wooden moulds, then painting them, then oil-gilding and lacquering them. Sometimes smooth panels of painted Cuir de Cordoue were used.
Patterns for these panels followed fashions in silk damask, at some lag in time, since the high-relief wooden moulds were laborious to make. After the second half of the 18th century, this luxurious artisan product was no longer made,[8] its place taken in part by chintz hangings and printed wallpapers. In the eighteenth century Chinoiserie patterns were popular with Cuir de Cordoue.
Use
Structures with leather wallpaper include:
- Chatsworth House
- Dyrham Park
- Ginter House
- Ham House, near London
- Djursholm Castle
- The Peacock Room, using early 16th-century leather brought to England by Catherine of Aragon, then reconstructed in London in the 1890s, now in the Frick Collectionin New York.
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts
- Loreto Abbey at Rathfarnham
- Ehreshoven Castle
- Cuir de Cordoue)
- Oranienbaum Palace
- Moritzburg Castle (painted leather wallpaper)
- Metlife Insurance Company Building boardroom
Important examples of Cuir de Cordoue can be seen in the
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Hof van Busleyden , Mechelen
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Town hall of Bremen
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Antependium in the church of Alloue
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Skokloster Castle, 17th century
See also
- Anaglypta
- Flock wallpaper
- Lincrusta Walton)
References
- ^ Wrought Leather; as a medium of decoration by Helen Henderso] House & Garden, Volume 4 page 227
- ^ John Waterer, Spanish Leather (Faber & Faber, London, 1971), outlines the history of this technique
- ^ Abrahamse, J. E. De grote uitleg van Amsterdam: stadsontwikkeling in de zeventiende eeuw. p. 217.
- ^ Het Goudleerhuis te Vreeland[permanent dead link]
- ^ http://research.frick.org/montias/browserecord2.php?-action=browse&-recid=1746 Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine [deadlink]
- ^ a b "1870–1890 Profusion of Patterns—Historic New England". Archived from the original on 2014-02-07. Retrieved 2014-02-07.
- ^ a b c Leather Wallpaper Scholar
- ^ "Atlas of World Art". Profkoslow.com.
- ^ "State Rooms". www.wawel.krakow.pl. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
Further reading
- Koldeweij, Eloy (2000). "Gilt Leather Hangings in Chinoiserie and Other Styles: An English Speciality". Furniture History. 36: 61–101. JSTOR 23409993.
- Historical wall coverings and wallpaper restoration by Paul Bramley, ISS Institute/Tafe Fellowship[dead link]