Leather Curios
Some very fine pieces of leather work have been modelled as curios and ornaments. Some of the most notable are models of old warships and fully rigged galleons made of leather. Leather pictures were made some years ago; a little later leather modelling of baskets of flowers, and the making of picture frames of leather was a popular amusement, some of the ornamental brackets made of leather being specially effective. The surrounds of picture frames made of leather cut to shape, carved and modelled, had a very similar effect to the beautiful carved wood work of an earlier period. Some of the powder flasks of leather which were used a century or two ago are valued curios, as well as the leather cases stamped and embossed so decorative and appropriate to the pistols and knives they were made to contain. Of the finer objects there are small curios like leather snuff boxes and trinket cases.
Of the more utilitarian leather work there is the wearing apparel of former days, the leather clothing of Cromwellian times and the leather boots. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a remarkably interesting case of leather shoes showing the evolution in style and appearance. There are some very pointed shoes worn in the fourteenth century, a slightly different shape in the fifteenth, both contrasting with the change in fashion which had come about in the sixteenth century, when the boots were square and some of the shoes very rounded. The Wellington boots of a later period are not yet much valued; there may come a time, however, when they will be regarded as museum curios. Leather gloves date back many centuries, and some of the old specimens with gauntlets and decorative cuffs are interesting antiques, as well as leather wallets, purses, and girdles.