Cuirs dorés, « Cuirs de Cordoue »

Developed during the Middle Ages in the region of Córdoba, gilded leathers reached their peak in the sixteenth century throughout Spain. Highly appreciated by the courts and aristocracies of most European countries from that time, the luxurious gilded leather hangings have largely contributed to decorate the interiors of the most sumptuous homes on the continent. In the seventeenth century, when the Spanish production was declining, more and more workshops were being developed throughout the rest of Europe – Italy, the Netherlands, France, England in particular. The craze for gilded leather continued everywhere for three centuries, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In the second half of the eighteenth century, throughout Europe simultaneously, the trend of golden leather was definitely past and already in the early nineteenth century golden leather was even forgotten. Certainly, during the period of Eclecticism, there were attempts to bring up to date these ancient decorations but they were only localized and ephemeral attempts; the techniques were no longer the same. Golden hides remained in oblivion until the last decades of the twentieth century. This book, based on bibliographical sources and especially on decorations still preserved in France and abroad, traces the largely unknown history, first Spanish and then European, of these sumptuous sets and their evolution.