Studio: international art (3.1894)

Leather Embossing





if





'•'.'*0 y \ 1 "as

T;V.\ ^\ "'/ ' ,',/iT



. ' ' 1



I'M] JhL v« ■ ' >": !"1 i



WkiL









SKETCH FOR THE PROSCENIUM OF THE QUEEN S THEATRE BY ALBERT MOORE

handling, which is one of the chief articles in the a pocket-book, a portmanteau, or a purse, we have
artistic creed of contemporary workers, it has been accustomed to see it employed as a smooth
obvious advantages, and might well be adopted by undecorated covering without any artistic treat-
many men to whom its convenience in other ways ment of the material itself.

does not appeal. In the hands of Albert Moore The craft of decorating leather, which forms the
himself it was full of variety, and satisfied every subject of this article, has in all probability
necessity of his practice. By the help of it he was existed since the time leather has been used at all.
able to follow his bent in the direction of Nature- The earliest examples extant are perhaps the sword-
worship, and to devote himself to the study of her belts of the Romans, which were cut and notched
ways. By attention to its rules he arrived at an in primitive designs. It grew to be a flourishing
admirable mode of expression, and succeeded in craft in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where
stating clearly and frankly the message which he
felt it his mission to deliver. By his very adoption
of such methods he proved himself to be one who
valued his life's work enough to seek to give it to
the world in the form that would gain for it the
attention and respect of all lovers of art. It is by
doing all this that he has put beyond dispute his
claim to rank among the chief artists of our times.

A. L. B.

For permission to reproduce the charming
Blossoms, by Albert Moore, which appears on the
opposite page, we are indebted to the kindness of
the owner, Henry Tate, Esq., of Streatham. The
sketch which heads this page is reproduced by
kind permission of Mrs. Coronio, and the designs
for inlay on page 49 by the courtesy of the owner,
G. Aitchison, Esq., R.A., who designed the serving-
table they were intended to decorate.

EATHER EMBOSSING AS AN
ARTISTIC HANDICRAFT.

r

In England, as in Germany, Austria and
JL—^ France, leather embossing may be said
to have been until quite recently one of the lost
arts, and we are only now awakening to the peculiar
adaptability of its medium for many articles of
ornament; for the great and splendid technique of
the past, the various ways in which leather was we find it employed on a multitude of articles,
fashioned and the many artistic uses to which em- but, of course, mostly on book-covers; it reached
bossed leather could be put, were quite forgotten. its zenith during the Renaissance. It began to
Where used for a commonplace article, such as disappear towards the end of the eighteenth century,

S1

BOOK-COVER BY H. JACOBSEN