Emu leather has a distinctive patterned surface, due to a raised area around the feather follicles in the skin; the leather is used in such items as wallets, handbags, shoes and clothes,[85] often in combination with other leathers. The feathers and eggs are used in decorative arts and crafts. In particular, emptied emu eggs have been engraved with portraits, similar to cameos, and scenes of Australian native animals.[92] Mounted Emu eggs and emu-egg containers in the form of hundreds of goblets, inkstands and vases were produced in the second half of the nineteenth century, all richly embellished with images of Australian flora, fauna and indigenous people by travelling silversmiths, founders of a 'new Australian grammar of ornament'.[93][94] They continued longstanding traditions that can be traced back to the European mounted ostrich eggs of the thirteenth century and Christian symbolism and notions of virginity, fertility, faith and strength. For a society of proud settlers who sought to bring culture and civilisation to their new world, the traditional ostrich-egg goblet, freed from its roots in a society dominated by court culture,[95] was creatively made novel in the Australian colonies as forms and functions were invented to make the objects attractive to a new, broader audience.[96] Significant designers Adolphus Blau, Julius Hogarth, Ernest Leviny, Julius Schomburgk, Johann Heinrich Steiner, Christian Quist, Joachim Matthias Wendt, William Edwards and others[97][98] had the technical training on which to build flourishing businesses in a country rich in raw materials and a clientele hungry for old-world paraphernalia.[99]
