Gilt Leather Wall Hangings

Bought unseen on a whim by my client , Andrew identified this 4 panel screen as part of a mid 17th / 18 th  century Gilt Leather wall hanging probably made in the Low Countries and from an affluent family hall or grand house.

Having prepared the leather surface  it was covered in silver leaf  and then over painted with orange or yellow varnish. 3 dimensional decorative designs were hand stamped or embossed using moulds to create the raised decorative effect. Finally the panels were coloured with natural resin- based paints.

In order to work on these extremely dry and delicate leather surfaces they were removed from their 19 th century softwood frames and re- hydrated  for three days. Historical repairs by gluing newsprint over the backs was removed and replaced with conservation grade spun- bond  polyester fabric. This provided support to  stabilise tears and to re-glue detached pieces. Cleaning and re- conditioning was carried out using  conservation  grade products & artist quality acrylic paints used to touch in missing detail.

As the client intended to re- hang the panels separately bespoke  gold leaf tooled leather edge banding was supplied and fixed to the outside edges with decorative upholstery nails as per the 19 th century treatment.