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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



December, 1906 



Leather for Interior Decoration 



By Phebe Westcott Humphreys 

 Illustrated by S. Walter Humphreys 



CULPTURED leather, tooled leather, em- 

 bossed and stamped and pyrographic leather 

 are conjuring terms for the interior decora- 

 tions of to-day. What does it all mean — 

 this flaunting of the magic leather wherever 

 there is a demand for art, oddity, antiquity, 

 or strictly new effects in the furnishing of homes or public 

 institutions? A new state capitol building is erected, and 

 the seals of the state are most elaborately executed in sculp- 

 tured leather for its mural decorations. A palace is built 

 for the multi-millionaire, and its stately magnificence dazzles 

 one with the leather schemes displaying heraldic designs 

 wherever there can be found a possible excuse for introducing 

 them. Armorial bearings are most carefully and artistically 

 executed in embossed leather for the home decorations of 

 Mr. and Mrs. Newly Rich. A modest home is started in a 

 country village; even here the leather fad penetrates, and the 

 bride numbers among her most treasured possessions that 

 wonderful wedding gift — a sofa cushion in leather pyrogra- 

 phy. No college den is quite complete without decorative 

 designs in tooled leather. The antiquarian searches the 



Panel Designs for Mural Decoration 



world over for a genuine fifteenth century chair of the sculp- 

 tured leather of Monkish days, or the quaint stamped leather 

 of the sixteenth century. 



New? Not at all! Sculptured leather is one of the oldest 

 of artistic decorative materials. The lapse has been so great, 

 however, between its introduction and its revival, that the in- 

 terior decorators of to-day are probably safer in claiming 

 originality, and strictly new methods of decoration in leather 

 work, than in any other field of decorative art. 



The earliest trace of the leather work now called "Cor- 

 dovan" is credited to the African Moors, who, before the 

 eleventh century, introduced the craft into Spain. 



It was during the early days of the fifteenth century that 

 sculptured leather became well known and executed. The 

 monasteries of continental Europe comprised the field of 

 these early efforts. The brothers who inhabited these monas- 



An Eighteenth Century Chair Covered with 

 Italian Wrought Leather 



teries, though they had many routine duties in their religious 

 life, had also abundant leisure for the tedious, painstaking 

 work required in executing those intricate designs of the ear- 

 liest sculptured leather. Before the days of Guttenberg — 

 when the monks had the most leisure for these laborious 

 branches of artistic decoration, bookmaking was a popular 

 diversion; and it was natural that the covers of the huge 

 volumes of those days should display the earliest examples of 

 rare sculptured leather. 



Quaint chairs were the next to receive the attention of 

 these old decorators. At first the chairs did not show the 

 same careful work as that displayed in the book bindings. 

 There was good reason for this — as expressed by an anti- 

 quarian recently who is interested in the newest as well as 

 the oldest samples of the art in leather. 



"Connected with the art of illuminating," he writes, "these 

 faithful savants — the Monks — achieved no little success with 

 the binding of their volumes. The enormous labor expended 

 on the contents justified bindings of substantial material, and 

 they selected cowhide as warranting centuries of service. The 

 wisdom of this is evidenced by the thousands of volumes 

 still preserved. 



"These times were contemporaneous with the introduction 

 of the Renaissance into England by Henry VIII, through his 



