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nourished.

As Japanese architecture had no need for wali hangings, which was the main application for goldleather in Europę, one may wonder what purpose the Japanese used it for. As the still existing artefacts show, goldleather was mostly used to be madę into all kinds of bags, purses and tobacco pouches. That is the reason why smali pattems with flcwer and foliage designs were preferred.

Supposedly tobacco has been brought to Japan fran Manilla by the Portuguese, at the end of the sixteenth century, when they were still allcwed to be in Japan. In 1639 all the foreigners, except the Dutch and the Chinese, were expelled because the newly established shogunate feared Catholicism eventually would become a major threat to Japan's sovereignty. From the second decade of the seventeenth century on, the habit of tobacco smoking gradually became fashionable, though limited to those cities that were in contact with foreign traders. At the end of the seventeenth century smoking tobacco was quite common, even for women, although it was still restricted to the innerside of the houses. By that time many areas had started to grcw their own tobacco. Erom the end of the 18th century onwards, it became customary to smoke even outdoors and the manufacturing of tobacco pouches and pipę holders increased accordingly. In those days it was very fashionable to have them madę of goldleather. Being a foreign product, it perfectly quenched the thirst for exotism that can be compared to nowaday's widespread wish of Japanese women to have a handbag or purse by Cardin,

Yves St. Laurent or their likes.

All these kinds of bags and pouches were carried in a special way emanating fran the Japanese way of dressing. On a wood błock print by Ando Hiroshige one can see a man lighting his pipę on the fire; he wears a short kimono held together by a broad belt which is called an obi. The man has a tobacco pouch and a pipę holder, hanging on a cord that ends in a toggle which is called a netsuke. The end with the netsuke was pulled through the obi in such a fashion that it peeped out of the upper part of the obi. In this print the netsuke is concealed by the man's sleeves. Another way to carry one's smoking accessoires was by hanging just only the pouch on the netsuke and tucking the pipę away in one's sleeve. One pouch combinated with a netsuke is madę of the same kind of leather of the mirror-box mentioned before. In some cases, when these m.irrorboxes were broken, the leather was used to be madę into such a pouch. Another interesting thing is the fact that the lining of this pouch is madę of chintz imported fran India and perfectly matching the goldleather from Holland.

The netsuke could also be of a long size and inserted into the obi. Later on the pipeholder was used instead, which madę the netsuke superfluous.

Examples of purse madę of 18th century goldleather are also known. The basie design consists of a geometrical stamping while the pattem is painted instead of being embossed. Goldleather was also used to cover boxes, saddles, stirrups, scabbards and the likes.

There are a lot of Japanese artefacts madę of goldleather but unfortunately we have little elear knowledge of the originals of this goldleather or other exact data.

It is not surprising that goldleather, apart fran having been madę into Japanese craft products, exercised some influence outside its cwn field. This in particular holds true for the designing of pattems for other materials. But it is ąuestionable if the artisans, in order to copy the pattems, had access to the goldleather itself. It was an expensive product that only the happy few could afford, which is illustrated by a tobaccopouch for which only a smali piece of goldleather has been used. Therefore it is likely that these artisans used example books. One such a book, though not exactly meant as a sample book, is the Sokenkisho written by Tsuryu Inaba and published in 1781. This 7 volume work mainly deals with swords and their accessories, but volume 6 gives a survey of the various types of foreign leather and hides that were imported into Japan. It records 15 kinds of goldleather. Especially one type, of which the book contains an illustration, occurs quite often in other materials. This is an indication that the artisans used these illustrations for designing their cwn products. The putti on this illustration are a very common seventeenth century goldleather design. If one oompares this print with an original piece of goldleather of the same type one sees that the 'hom of plenty' which one putto is holding is misunderstood by the Japanese artisan, and madę into a simple branch with leaves.

One example of the use of this pattem is a pipeholder madę of staghom with a carving of such putto. On both sides the seams, that are often seen on goldleather pouches, are