New gilt-leather seats for two Portuguese baroque chairs

Anyone can see the chairs are in perfect condition and that leathers seats are all but gone. This type of gilt leather was originally part of a wall covering. Circa 1735 it is installed and is the proud of the house, then fashion changes and the room is redecorated, the once precious leathers are stored in the attic, where a leak in the roof ...... etc etc (fiction) than somewhere around 1810 they are recovered by an amazed granddaughter some leathers are reinstalled in a hallway some turn into a screen and some find their final destiny on chairs. This is what you are looking at now, the story is fiction but the senario is good.

Time to set to work !

The pattern on the chairs is the Marot panel in a polychrome version. The Marot is a classic design we have in collection, the panel as shown here above is gilded in a light silver-gilding the birds had a coat of shellac and the panel is antiqued so to down-tone the shine.

Now its time to add antiquing to bind all colours and to down-tone the shine even more.

OMG they have been difficult to make decent pictures of !