View of the Russian Empire,
During the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Eighteenth Century.
By William Tooke, F. R. S.
Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Free Economical Society at St. Petersburg.
In three volumes. Vol. III.
The Third Edition.
Dublin: Printed by P. Wogan, No. 23, Old-Bridge.
1801
SHAGREEN, which is likewise prepared in Astrakhan, mostly by Tartars and Armenians, is also a very valuable kind of leather, the preparation whereof is not in use with the other nations of Europe. The process is as follows:
For making shagreen, horse-hides and ass-hides are taken; but properly no more than the hinder back-piece are useful for this purpose, which is cut off immediately above the tail in nearly a semicircular form about an arshine and a half upon the crupper, and rather less than an arshine along the back. The rest of the horse-hide, from long experience being reckoned unfit for shagreen-making, is thrown away. The back pieces thus cut out are laid in a vat filled with clean water, and left in it several day's successively, till they are thoroughly soaked and the hair comes freely off. Then the hides are taken one by one out of the vat, spread against a board set flanting against the wall, one corner of it reaching over the edge of the board where it is fastened; and in this position the hair is scraped off with a blunt scraper, urak, and with the hair the upper pellicle; and the cleansed skin is laid again in clean water to soften.
This done, they take it a second time out, spread one piece after another in the manner before described, scrape now the flesh-side with the same scraping iron, and the whole skin cleaned again on the hair-side with great care, so that nothing now remains of the softened skin but the clean finewy web which serves for parchment, consisting of thick fasciculi of mellow fibres, resembling a hog's bladder softened in water.
After this preparation they immediately take in hand certain frames, pæltzi, composed of a strait piece and a semicircular bow, forming therefore nearly the shape of the skin, which is stretched in it with strings as even and uniform as possible; and during this operation is sprinkled between whiles with fair water, that no part of it can dry and occasion an unequal extension. In like manner they finally wet them when all the stock of skins are stretched, and carry all the thoroughly wetted skins into the work-room.
1 Chenopodium album.There the frames are one by one laid flat on the floor, so that the flesh-side of the stretched skins is turned undermost. The other side is now thick strewed over with the black, very smooth, and hard seeds of a species of the herb goose-foot, or the greater orach1 which the Tartars call alabuta, and which grows in great abundance and almost to man's height about the fouthern Volga in farm-yards and gardens; and that these may make a strong impression on the skin, a felt is spread over them, and the seeds trod in with the feet, by which means they are impressed deeply into the very yielding skins. Then, without shaking off these seeds, the frames are carried again into the open air, and set leaning against a fence or a wall to dry, in such manner that the sides covered with the seeds face the wall and cannot be shone on by the sun. In this situation the stretched skins must dry for several days successively in the sun, till no trace of moisture is perceptible in them, and they may be taken out of the frames. Then, when the impressed seeds are beaten off from the hairside, it appears full of little pits and roughnesses, and has got that impression which the grain of the shagreen ought to produce when the true polish has been given to the skin by art, and the lye now to be mentioned has been used previous to the staining.
The polish is done on a stretching-bench or a board on tressels, furnished with a small iron hook and covered with some thick felts or voiloks of sheep's wool, on which the dried shagreen-skin may lie soft. This is hung in the middle, by a hole which has been occasioned by the string in the stretching, to the hook, and fastened at the end by a string with a weight or a stone, by means whereof the skin is allowed to move to and fro, but cannot easily be shoved out of its proper situation. This done, the polishing or rasping is performed by two several instruments: the first is called by the Tartars tokar, being an iron, crooked at one end like a hook and sharpened. With this the surface of the shagreen is scraped pretty sharply, in order to remove the most prominent rugosities, which from the horny hardness of the dried skin is no easy matter, and in which great care must be taken not to shave away too deeply the impressions of the alabuta -feeds, of which there is imminent danger if the iron be kept too sharp. As the blade of this iron is very narrow, it will make the shagreen rather uneven, and therefore after it, must be used the other scraper or urak, whereby the whole surface acquires a perfect equality, and only a flight impression remains of the seeds, exactly as it ought to be.
After all these operations the shagreen is laid again in water, partly for rendering it supple and partly to make the elevated grain appear: for the seeds having caused pits in the surface of the skin, the interstices of these pits have lost their prominent substance by the polishing or shaving, and now the points that were pressed down, having lost nothing of their substance, spring up above the shaved places, and thus form the grain of the shagreen.
To this end the pieces of shagreen are left to soften twice 24 hours in water, and are floated several times afterwards in a strong and hot lye, which is obtained by boiling from an alkalescent saline earth, schora, found about Astrakhan. From this lye the skins are bundled warm one on another, and thus suffered to lie some hours, whereby they swell up and are softened in an extraordinary manner. Again, they are left to lie 24 hours in a moderately strong brine of common salt, by which they are rendered fine and white, and excellently adapted to receive any agreeable colour, which the workman hastens to give them as soon as they are come out of the pickle.
The colour most commonly communicated to the fine shagreen, is the sea-green as the most beautiful. But the expert shagreen-makers have the art of making also black, red, blue, and even white shagreen.
For the green dye nothing more is necessary than fine copper filings and sal-ammoniac. As much of the latter is melted in hot water as the water will admit. With this sal-ammoniac-water the shagreen skins still moist from the brine are brushed over on the ungrained flesh-side, and when they are thoroughly wetted, a thick layer of copper-filings is strewed over them, the skins doubled together, so that the strewed side lies inwards, then each being rolled apart in a little felt or voilok, they lay all these rolls orderly on one another, and press them equally by a considerable and uniformly pressing weight, under which they must lie 24 hours. In this time the sal-ammoniac-water dissolves enough of the cuprous particles for penetrating the skin with an agreeable sea-green colour; and though it be not strong enough the first time, yet a second layer of copper-dust wetted with sal-ammoniac water, with which the skins must lie again 24 hours will be quite sufficient for staining them thoroughly; when they may be properly cleaned, spread out, and dried.
For giving the blue colour to shagreen they use only indigo, which to this end is not so prepared as for the silk and cotton dyers, but entirely without bones, only by strenuous friction, is mingled and dissolved with the other ingredients: They put about two pound of finely grated indigo in the kettle, pour cold water on it and stir it till the dye begins to dissolve. They next dissolve in it five pounds of pounded alakar, which is a sort of barilla or raw soda-salt, burnt by the Armenians of Kitzliar and a worse kind by the Kalmuks, adding two pounds of lime and one pound of virgin honey, all thoroughly stirred and set in the sun for several days, during which the stirring is frequently repeated. The shagreen skins which are to be made blue must be put only in the natrous lye, schora, but not in the brine made of common salt. They are again folded up wet, and sewed close together round the edges with the flesh-side turned inwards and the shagreened hair-side outwards, upon which they are three times dipped in succession in an old store-dye kettle,at every time pressing out the fuperfluous dye; lastly, they are all brought into fresh dye, which must not be pressed out, and with which the skin is hung up in the shade to dry; they are for the last time cleaned, ornamented on the edges, and reduced to order.
For the black shagreen they employ nutgalls and vitriol in the following manner: the skins still moist with the brine are thick strewed with finely powdered nutgalls, folded together and laid one on another 24 hours. In the mean time a new lye of bitter earth-salts or schora is boiled and poured hot in little troughs or trays. In this lye each skin is waved to and fro several times, is again strewed with pulverized nutgalls and again laid in heaps for some time, that the virtue of the galls may thoroughly penetrate the skins, which are then suffered to dry, and are beat out to clear them from the galls. When this is done, the skin is smeared on the shagreen-side with mutton fuet, and laid a little in the sunn, that it may absord the fat. It is the custom likewise with the shagreen-makers to roll up each skin apart, and to squeeze and press it against some solid body, in order to promote the absorption of the unctuous particles. The surplus is again scraped off with a blunt wooden scraper. This being done, and the skin having lain a little while, a sufficient quantity of iron-vitriol is dissolved in water, with which the shagreen is rubbed on both sides, whereby it soon acquires a beautiful black colour: and now the edges and other defective parts are dressed.
To obtain white shagreen the skin must first be steeped in strong alum-water on the shagreened side. Having imbibed this, the skin is well rubbed on both sides with a paste of wheaten flour, and left to dry with it; then all the paste is washed away with alum-water, and the skin set to dry completely in the sun. As soon as the skins are dry, they are gently smeared over with clean melted mutton fat, leaving them in the sun to imbibe it, and are worked and pressed with the hands to promote this effect. Afterwards the skins are fastened one by one on the above mentioned stretching-bench, warm water is poured over it, and the superfluous far scraped off with obtuse wooden instruments, to which the warm water just poured on has much assisted. By this process the shagreen receives a fine white colour, and needs only in conclusion to be dressed and rubbed. This whiteness, however, is given to the shagreen, not so much that it may continue in that state, but in order to impart to it a beautiful high red hue, as this end could not be obtained to such perfection without that preparation.
2 Salsola ericoides.
3 Pallas, neue Nord. Beytr. tom. i. p. 325.But the shagreens intended to be stained red must not be brought out of the natrous bitter salt lye into the brine, but must be made white in the manner above described, and afterwards supplied with the brine, in which they are left to lie about 24 hours, or less, from the dye. The dye is made with cochenille or kirmiss as the Tartars call it. The operation is begun by boiling for a full hour about a pound of the dried herb tschagan, which grows plentifully on the salt steppes about Astrakhan, and is a fort of kali 2, in a kettle large enough to contain about four common vedros of water, whereby the water acquires a greenish colour. The herb is then taken out and about half a pound of grated cochenille put into the kettle, with which the above decoction must boil another full hour, diligently stirring it on the fire that the kettle may not boil over. Lastly, to this are added 15 or 20 grains of the material which the dyers call lutter (perhaps orpiment), let the dye boil a little more, and then take the fire from under the kettle. Then the skins taken out of the brine are laid separately in trays, pouring the dye upon them four times, rubbing it in with the hands, that it may be equally spread and imbibed, pressing it out every time; which done, they are ready for drying and ornamenting, and sell much dearer than the others3.
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