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Shagreen is a type of
rawhide Rawhide may refer to: *Rawhide (material), a hide or animal skin that has not been tanned * Whip made from rawhide Entertainment * ''Rawhide'' (1926 film), a Western directed by Richard Thorpe * ''Rawhide'' (1938 film), a Western starring baseball ...
consisting of rough untanned
skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...
, historically from a horse's or
onager The onager (, ) (''Equus hemionus''), also known as hemione or Asiatic wild ass, is a species of the family Equidae native to Asia. A member of the subgenus ''Asinus'', the onager was Scientific description, described and given its binomial name ...
's back, or from
shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...
or
ray Ray or RAY may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), the bony or horny spine on ray-finned fish Science and mathematics * Half-line (geometry) or ray, half of a line split at an ...
.


Etymology

The word derives from the
French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...
' and is related to
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
and
Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetians might refer to: * Masters of Venetian painting in 15th-16th centuries * ...
''sagrin'', derived from the Turkic ''sağrı'' / ''çağrı'' 'rump of a horse' or the prepared skin of this part. The roughness of its texture led to the French meaning of anxiety, vexation, embarrassment, or annoyance.


Preparation and uses

Shagreen has an unusually rough and granular surface, and is sometimes used as a fancy leather for book bindings, pocketbooks and small cases, as well as its more utilitarian uses in the
hilt The hilt (rarely called a haft or shaft) is the handle of a knife, dagger, sword, or bayonet, consisting of a guard, grip, and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A tassel or sword knot may be attached to the guard or pomme ...
s and
scabbard A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, dagger, knife, or similar edged weapons. Rifles and other long guns may also be stored in scabbards by horse riders for transportation. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring ...
s of
sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
s and
dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...
s, where slipperiness is a disadvantage. In Asia, the Japanese
tachi A is a type of sabre-like traditionally made Japanese sword (''nihonto'') worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. ''Tachi'' and '' uchigatana'' ("''katana''") generally differ in length, degree of curvature, and how they were worn when she ...
,
katana A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...
, and
wakizashi The is one of the traditionally made Japanese swords ('' nihontō'') worn by the samurai in feudal Japan. Its name refers to the practice of wearing it inserted through one's ''obi'' or sash at one's side, whereas the larger '' tachi'' sword wa ...
swords had their hilts almost always covered in undyed
rawhide Rawhide may refer to: *Rawhide (material), a hide or animal skin that has not been tanned * Whip made from rawhide Entertainment * ''Rawhide'' (1926 film), a Western directed by Richard Thorpe * ''Rawhide'' (1938 film), a Western starring baseball ...
shagreen, while in China, shagreen, whose use dates back to the 2nd century CE, was traditionally used on Qing dynasty
composite bow A composite bow is a traditional bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together, a form of laminated bow. The horn is on the belly, facing the archer, and sinew on the outer side of a wooden core. When the bow is drawn, the sinew (s ...
s. Typically the ears and the spaces above and beneath the grip were covered by polished shagreen (in which the calcified
papillae Papilla (Latin, 'nipple') or papillae may refer to: In animals * Papilla (fish anatomy), in the mouth of fish * Papilla (worms), small bumps on the surface of certain worms * Basilar papilla, a sensory organ of lizards, amphibians and fish * De ...
are reduced to equal height and form a uniform surface), sometimes with inlay work of different coloured shagreen. Shagreen was a very common cover for 19th-century reading glasses containers as well as other utensil boxes from China. The early horse-skin variety of equine-based faux-shagreen was traditionally prepared by embedding plant seeds (often ''
Chenopodium ''Chenopodium'' is a genus of numerous species of perennial or annual herbaceous flowering plants known as the goosefoot, which occur almost anywhere in the world. It is placed in the family Amaranthaceae in the APG II system; older classifica ...
'') in the untreated skin while soft, covering the skin with a cloth, and trampling them into the skin. When the skin was dry, the seeds were shaken off, leaving the surface of the leather covered with small indentations. Sources are not clear whether this was being done to imitate pearl ray-skin shagreen from East Asia or if the technique was developed separately. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the term "shagreen" began to be applied to leather made from sharkskin or the skin of a rayfish (probably the pearled ray, ''
Hypolophus sephen The cowtail stingray (''Pastinachus sephen'') is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, widespread in the Indo-Pacific region and occasionally entering freshwater habitats. Other common names include banana-tail ray, drab stingray, fant ...
''). This form is also termed sharkskin or galuchat. Such skins are naturally covered with round, closely set, calcified papillae called
placoid scale A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as w ...
s, whose size is chiefly dependent on the age and size of the animal. These scales are ground down to give a roughened surface of rounded pale protrusions, between which the dye (again, typically green vegetable dye) shows when the material is coloured from the other side. This latter form of shagreen was first popularised in Europe by :fr:Jean-Claude Galluchat (d. 1774), a master leatherworker in the court of
Louis XV of France Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
. It quickly became a fashion amongst the French aristocracy, and migrated throughout Europe by the mid-18th century. "The appeal of shagreen in Europe was closely bound up with the way the translucent skin absorbs colour, but in Japan, its whiteness was the measure of value". Scholars concur that its popularity in Central Asia, where green footwear made of shagreen was popular into the 19th century, probably came as the result of its introduction from China perhaps during the 16th century rule of
Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...
. Three items made of shagreen can be found in the Topkapi Palace collection. Since the 18th century shagreen has typically been used for covering portable items such as luggage, toilet cases and other boxes, the hard and robust looking finish seeming to assure its reputation for standing up to rough handling; book coverings are also known as well as larger pieces of furniture. The water-resistant qualities ascribed to the finish are probably why there are many toiletry cases and associated objects such as shaving kits, snuff boxes and other items of a personal nature. The restrained look of the skin was felt to be very suitable for men. Items continued to be manufactured during the 19th century, usually influenced by 18th century examples. There was a definite resurgence in items being made during the 1920s and 1930s, the lean hard finish and traditional pale green tone lending itself very well to the prevailing
Art-deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s, ...
style. Many of these items are designed along modernist lines with little 18th century influence. A broad range of items date from this period including furniture and luggage. In the 1970s, shagreen became fashionable again, partly due to the renewed interest in the Art-deco period. A range of items, including furniture such as small tables, have been manufactured since then, providing work for a small number of craftspeople catering to the luxury market. Small decorative items made of shagreen and silver have become popular in Southeast Asia; most are manufactured by high-end design studios in Thailand. Even now, shagreen products continue to be used occasionally as decorative furnishings, particularly in luxury homes and are popular products amongst interior designers. Examples include shagreen photo frames, decorative boxes and jewelry holders. Another popular application of shagreen has been using it to create a vide poche (French for 'empty pockets'), designed to hold small essentials such as keys, money and anything else you might typically need to 'empty from your pockets' when you arrive somewhere like home.


Medicine

In medicine, a shagreen patch is a patch of shagreen-like rough skin, often on the lower back, found in some people with the genetic condition
tuberous sclerosis Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a rare multisystem autosomal dominant genetic disease that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow in the brain and on other vital organs such as the kidneys, heart, liver, eyes, lungs and skin. A combinatio ...
.


See also

*''
La Peau de chagrin ''La Peau de chagrin'' (, ''The Skin of Shagreen''), known in English as ''The Magic Skin'' and ''The Wild Ass's Skin'', is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tel ...
'' (19th century novel by Balzac)


References


Further reading

* * Christine Guth, "Towards a Global History of Shagreen" in ''The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World'', ed. by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Aiello. London: Rutledge, 2015, pp. 62–80.


External links


"Ramsden Shagreen Opera Glass"
photos of a magnification device partly covered in green-dyed, polished shagreen (c. 1770)
"Adams shagreen etui"
photo of a utensil case covered in green-dyed, polished shagreen (c. 1800)

''Bookbinding and the conservation of books: A dictionary of descriptive terminology'', 1982

''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', December 6, 1991: "credited with reviving shagreen, the rough skin of an Asian shark, which had been popular as a fabric in the 1920s but had fallen out of favor."
"Fish-Skin Veneer Is Costly Covering"
''
The Cincinnati Post ''The Cincinnati Post'' was an afternoon daily newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. In Northern Kentucky, it was Product bundling, bundled inside a local edition called ''The Kentucky Post''. The ''Post'' was a founding publi ...
'', September 15, 2001
"Can't Find Nemo? Try Stingray"
''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'', February 2, 2004
"It's Stingray, Dahling! A Species in Danger"
''
International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...
'', November 26, 2005
"Shagreen swims into sight again"
''
Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...
'', September 3, 2008
"What is Shagreen?"
in-depth explanation, October 30, 2009
"The Beauty and History of Shagreen"
March 4, 2013 {{leather Leather Turkish words and phrases