Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. The following remarks, without attempting a description in detail of the different phases through which the art of decorating leather has passed since its origin in primitive times, deal with the treatment of leather solely from the decorative point of view, the present volume being limited to the consideration of this aspect of the subject. In all ages man has sought to develop to their fullest extent the possibilities of splendour in the materials of his dress, and an important place in the wardrobes of our early ancestors was filled by skins shorn of hair, thus lending themselves easily to decoration in many different ways. The nomadic races, described to us as at first riding their horses barebacked to the conquest of the West, soon adopted ornamental trappings more suited to their position as conquerors, as shown by the marvellous mosaics of pique leather which from an early date constituted the foundation of the war-like equipment of the Tartars and Moguls."