INCRUSTED MOSAIC
The following description of a style of decoration, called by Mons. Belleville “incrusted mosaic,”[9] is derived from the valuable work of that author, entitled Le Cuir dans la Décoration Moderne.
[9] Mosaïque par Incrustation.
In incrusted mosaic the design is not cut out and applied on the background, but the different pieces of coloured leather forming the design and the leather of the background are placed side by side on the same plane. When the ornament is simple and the background plain, the design is traced on the groundwork, carefully cut out, and used as a pattern for cutting out the piece destined to replace it; when the ornament is to embrace the whole surface, the following method is recommended: The design, drawn on paper and coloured, is fixed on a drawing-board and over it is placed a sheet of transparent paper, or some thin muslin carefully sized and stretched. An exact tracing of the design is made on rather stiff paper, which is coloured or numbered to correspond with the pieces of the different leathers which are to compose the mosaic. The tracing is then cut out, separated, and the pieces pasted on the corresponding leather, either with the face on the flesh side of the leather, or the back on its surface. In the latter case it is very lightly done, but if pasted on the
flesh side it should be done securely, as it will remain permanently. When all these pieces are cut out of the leather they are pasted in their respective places on the design, and the whole put in the press for about ten hours. If the work has been well executed, the lines where the pieces of leather come together will be hardly visible; the next step is to accentuate them and make them regular. This may be done either with a heated wheel giving a smooth even line, which may, if desired, be subsequently gilded, or by pyrogravure. Vigour and character can be imparted to the outline by the use of the latter process, and the darkened colour of the burnt line is made more brilliant by polishing it with an agate burnisher. In either case the tool must be worked accurately with its edge half on each side of the line. The main advantage of the process of incrusted mosaic is that the grain of the leather employed is better displayed than in inlaid mosaic. It is only suitable for work on a large scale.