Leather mosaic

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Leather mosaic refers to a technique of multi-colored cover decoration , which had its peak in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. A distinction must be made between the leather overlay , which applies the pattern to the cover leather , and the leather insert (or leather inlay ), which allows precisely cut pieces of the same thickness into a frame made of cover leather, so that a flat surface is created. The question of whether the term can be applied to both phenomena has not been finally clarified in the professional world. Depending on the author, either a single or an edition or both can be referred to as leather mosaic. A mosaic in the strict sense of the word only represents the leather inlay, but the term is used extensively in the standard works by Helwig and Mazal.

history

Covers decorated with leather are already known from engraved volumes from the 16th century. It was not until the 18th century, however, beginning with Augustin Duseuil , but especially promoted by the French bookbinder Antoine Michel Padeloup le jeune , that leather mosaic was increasingly used in the decoration of luxury bindings. The representations ranged from purely symmetrical jewelry to figurative motifs such as birds, people or landscapes. In addition to the book covers , the doublure was often decorated with bright colors. After the lace pattern , the leather mosaic was the most popular jewelry in 18th century France.

A large number of bindings only get the look of leather mosaics through different light or speckled areas of the leather, which is achieved by treating the different areas of the cover leather with chemicals.

Manufacture of leather overlay

For the leather cover, the motif must first be preprinted. Similar to gilding , the design is drawn on thin, but sturdy paper the size of the book cover, this is attached to the cover and the drawing is transferred to the leather using the heated tools . The straight lines are initially only marked by their starting and ending points. In the next step, everything is reprinted without the template in order to achieve an even depth of the impression. The parts planned in color are now transferred from the preliminary drawing onto appropriately thin, sharpened pieces of leather and cut out with a small, pointed knife. Each piece of mosaic is matched by the preprint on the cover leather and glued on with paste. The contours must then be blindly reprinted to prevent them from peeling off. It is also possible to gild these outlines.

Manufacture of leather inlay

The leather inlay requires a much more detailed procedure. Because the assembled parts serve as a cover material in their entirety, there must be no gaps or overlaps between the individual elements, the leather must be tight to one another. In order to obtain identical pieces, several layers of leather can be connected with an easily removable adhesive and the motif can be cut out after drying with carefully applied vertical cuts. Then the parts have to be detached from one another and put together on the book cover.

literature

  • Ernst Ammering: Book covers (= The bibliophile paperbacks 475). Harenberg Kommunikation, Dortmund 1985, ISBN 3-88379-475-9 , pp. 235f.
  • Hellmuth Helwig: Introduction to Binding. Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1970, ISBN 3-7772-7008-3 , p. 65f.
  • Otto Mazal : Binding customer. The history of the book cover (= elements of the book and library system 16). Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-88226-888-3 , pp. 34 and 238.
  • Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller: Mosaic bindings . In: Severin Corsten (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire book system. Volume 5: M - Photon. 2nd completely revised edition. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-7772-9904-9 , p. 240.