THE LEATHER PANELS, POSSIBLY MECHELAN, FIRST-HALF 18TH CENTURY

This richly decorated set of ten panels demonstrates the skill in cordwain craft, or gilded and embossed leather hangings most commonly associated with the Low Countries. The city and municipality of Mechelen in the province of Antwerp was an established centre for Goudleerkamer as early as the fourteenth century, where wet leather was stretched over boards, painted, oil-gilded and subsequently lacquered. The present scheme with its repeat pattern of fabric swags above fruiting vines adorned with exotic birds and "tree of life" motif recalls wallpaper hangings in the Chinese taste fashionable throughout the eighteenth century. The hard-wearing nature of the lacquered leather and its resistance to both dampness and insects made such hangings more durable than either paper or tapestry counterparts for the schematic decoration of an interior.
A fine example of the artistry achieved in the deployment of this technique with chinoiserie and floral ornament can be found in the Notre-Dame Cathedral at Malonne, thought to have been produced in Brussels circa 1765 and attributed to craftsman Cornelis t'Kindt.