Goatskin Leather Tanned with Sumac, the Morocco Way

Morocco leather is goatskin tanned with sumac: light, supple and fine-grained. Andrew Ure (1839) gives the method: bran and lime to loosen the hair, the skin scraped clean, then sewn into a bag, grain outside, and floated in sumac liquor for a day. Oiled and curried, it takes the pebbled grain used for gloves and book covers. The picture: early 18th-century calf bindings inlaid with panels of coloured morocco.