金唐革の復元 CUOI D'ORO WORLD
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金唐革とは What's "Kinkarakawa" そ の 歴 史 製法 ・ 技法 工房と作者の紹介
 CUOI D' ORO (golden leather) is an art of great rarity which was made only for a duration of 300 years from the Italian Renaissance period (500 years ago) until just before the Napoleon's Revolution (200 years ago).

 What is CUOI D'ORO ? – It's one of the art techniques to make leather craft, which is to tan, plate it with leaves of special metal, then make embossed pattern using metal molds, and finally dying it. Sandro Botticelli, a great artist from Florence expanded this technique to the level of an art. There were very similar techniques from before but we can say that his CUOI D'ORO was the one to scale the heights of leather craftworks.
 Botticelli invented CUOI D'ORO as an alternative to fresco or tempera for decorating walls, and therefore it has 2 special features.
 One is that it is durable enough to be used for construction. Botticelli would have never expected it but CUOI D'ORO which he made has survived for 500 years and still looks perfect.
 Another is that it had to be big enough to decorate all over the wall. Of course the size of one leather sheet is limited, so he invented the technique to produce multiple pieces from one mold. This new technique was accepted by noble families and authorities including Medici, and was used to decorate many different walls of palaces and temples for the next 300 years.
 Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello Sanzio and Vermeer were also known for producing some great works of CUOI D' ORO.
 However, CUOI D'ORO's history ended about 200 years ago. People started using new kind of varnish, which did not allow metallic leaf to adhere leather, and so they had to use gold powder as a substitute. It caused a gradual drop in quality of CUOI D'ORO, and it disappeared completely by the end of Rococo period.
 However, it once regained its spotlight in Japan from Meiji through Taishou period.
 CUOI D'ORO decorated many walls of palaces and temples in Europe for a long time, but they were torn off and sold when they rebuilt and renovated the buildings. You can still see a part of them in museums of different countries in Europe, but most of them were bought by Japanese people, cut up in small pieces, then made into bags and other small items, and sold as "KINKARAKAWA" (means European gold leather). "KINKARAKAWA" became a rage, but it lasted only for 50 years, until the beginning of Taishou period with a very simple reason, - they had ran out of the material in Europe.
 Then, most of the "KINKARAKAWA" products did not survive through earthquake disasters and the World Wars.
 And now, CUOI D'ORO is coming back in Japan again. Hikonosuke Tokuriki, a great artist in Kyoto, rediscovered CUOI D'ORO, and by analyzing the chips of old CUOI D'ORO chemically, the found out there were differences between the pieces from their country and period of origin.
 They also found the origin of CUOI D'ORO after 50 years of researching and analyzing, and succeeded in reproducing CUOI D'ORO of the same quality or of even better quality.
 Now is the time that we reintroduce "CUOI D'ORO" to the world again after 500 years.
 So let us present "CUOI D'ORO" once more to you all, the magnetic Golden Leather craft restoring the great spirit of Botticelli, who perfected it to a fine art 500 years ago.