The most expensive material to be applied to furniture or accessories might be Shagreen. Shagreen is traditionally made from the skins of sharks, dogfish, and stingrays that are bleached, filed, and dyed, typically pale green. Though the material seems delicate, it is actually quite tough and withstands years of natural use with ease.
Throughout the centuries, Shagreen, the luminous, caviar-textured natural finish, has served as everything, from the no-slip covering on samurai sword grips to the veneer lining the Aga Khan’s prewar Rolls Royce. Labour intensive, hard to come by in large quantities, and nearly impermeable, it well deserves its status as one of the world’s most prized—and priciest—decorative materials. There are many different types and sizes of furniture, as well as more affordable Shagreen-decked pieces such as small boxes, cigarette cases, compacts, dressing table mirrors, and brushes. Shagreen covered items are usually antiques as very few these days take the time or the effort to veneer anything with this costly, difficult and labour-intensive material.
Its name, derived from the Turkish saghri (the croup of an animal), also applies to processed leather bearing an ornamental pebbled surface. It was the exotic piscine-derived Shagreen, however, that captured the imagination of Louis XV and his court, thanks to Jean-Claude Galuchat, a craftsman who specialized in making sheaths. Galuchat dazzled his royal clientele with Shagreen cases containing perfume flacons, sewing sets, lorgnettes, and other accoutrements of high-style eighteenth-century living. To this day, Shagreen is known in France as galuchat.
During the early decades of 20th century, French cabinetmakers and decorators such as Paul Iribe, Clement Rousseau, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, and Jean-Michel Frank rediscovered Shagreen as the perfect textural foil to their sleek furniture designs. There seems to be something irresistible about this stuff, as celebrities like the Duke of Windsor and Andy Warhol seemed to be attracted to it. The Prince of Wales, later the duke of Windsor, played a part in this revival by enthusiastically commissioning Shagreen tables, humidors, and even toe caps for his shoes, and Warhol had a collection of Shagreen veneered Art Deco furniture that sold for close to $1 million. Art Deco furniture designers in the late 19th and early 20th century used Shagreen for their well-to-do clients. One example, a chest of drawers, was sold for close to $3 million. New York decorator Robert Metzger lives with hundreds of historic examples of Shagreen, which inspired him to design Shagreen –patterned wallpaper and porcelain.
There has recently been bit of revival of Shagreen covered furnishings, but these pieces will only be found in a few choice places.