CHAPTER VIII
LEATHER AND HORN
Spanish leather—"Cuir boulli" work—Tapestry and upholstery—Leather bottles and drinking vessels—Leather curios—Shoes—Horn work.
That "there is nothing like leather" has been believed by people of all ages, and in many countries the general belief has been put into practice, for many indeed are the uses to which leather has been put. As a lasting material it has been proved to possess excellent qualities. The artist, too, has found that leather is capable of being treated so as to give the effect of delicate carvings, and to serve well many purposes of decoration.
In the East leather was used in patriarchal times, the skins of animals making excellent water bottles. In mediæval England leather black jacks, cups, and flagons withstood the rough usage of those roisterous times. The collector seeks both useful and ornamental, and finds much to delight among the old leathern objects hid away as being now quite useless or antiquated.
Spanish Leather.
As early as the fifteenth century Cordova, in Spain, was celebrated for its workers in leather, and for the fine ornamental leather vessels produced there. Some of the designs favoured by Spanish craftsmen were gruesome in the extreme. Indeed, many were fashioned for the purpose of creating fear in the use of the vessels so ornamented.
A few years ago a remarkably fine collection of old Spanish leather work was exhibited in London. There were some hideous and grotesque figures, which it was said had been designed for the mental torture of the victims of the Inquisition. Some of the larger specimens were remarkably well executed, especially so some of the wine bottles which imitated very realistically the pose of men and women. Some of the female figures were represented wearing flowing gowns and costumes of the height of fashion—tall and noble women. By way of contrast there were little manikin wine jugs of the most grotesque forms.
The Spaniards made leather upholsteries of remarkable designs; they also ornamented boxes, trunks, and cases for knives and costly trinkets.