both
having the same root as the Anglo-Saxon word "smelt." The enamels of
China and Japan so extensively imported into this country of late years
are chiefly made by filling cloisons or cells formed of fine metal wires
or plates with coloured enamels and then firing them. As the collector
advances in his appreciation of the old craftsmen, he soon recognizes
the difference between the antiques sent over by Oriental merchants and
the modern works made on present-day commercial lines, and not the work
of men whose time was deemed of small account if they acquired notoriety
for the beauty of their work.

The household enamels of English make consist chiefly of those beautiful
little boxes, trinkets, and domestic objects made at Battersea and
Bilston in the eighteenth century. The enamels used for the ground were
tinted rose, blue, and other shades, and ornamented with painted
pictures and mottoes. A very fine group of Battersea patch boxes is
shown in Fig. 63.

VIII

LEATHER AND HORN

CHAPTER VIII

LEATHER AND HORN

Spanish leather--"Cuir boulli" work--Tapestry and
upholstery--Leather bottles and drinking vessels--Leather
curios--Shoes--Horn work.

That "there is nothing like leather" has been believed by people of all
ages, and in many countries the general belief has been put into
practice, for many indeed are the uses to which leather has been put. As
a lasting material it has been proved to possess excellent qualities.
The artist, too, has found that leather is capable of being treated so
as to give the effect of delicate carvings, and to serve well many
purposes of decoration.

In the East leather was used in patriarchal times, the skins of animals
making excellent water bottles. In mediaeval England leather black jacks,
cups, and flagons withstood the rough usage of those roisterous times.
The collector seeks both useful and ornamental, and finds much to
delight among the old leathern objects hid away as being now quite
useless or antiquated.

Spanish Leather.

As early as the fifteenth century Cordova, in Spain, was celebrated for
its workers in leather, and for the fine ornamental leather vessels
produced there. Some of the designs favoured by Spanish craftsmen were
gruesome in the extreme. Indeed, many were fashioned for the purpose of
creating fear in the use of the vessels so ornamented.

A few years ago a remarkably fine collection of old Spanish leather work
was e