Leather wallpaper is a type of wallpaper used in various styles for wall covering. It is often referred to as wrought leather. It is often gilded, painted and decorated. Leather was used to cover and decorate sections of walls in the houses of the rich, and some public buildings. Leather is pliable and could be decorated in various ways.

Cuir de Cordoue, or cordwain or cordovan (meaning: "from Córdoba"), sometimes called gold leather (from Dutch "goudleer"), refers to painted and gilded (and often embossed) leather hangings, manufactured in panels and assembled for covering walls as an alternative to tapestry. These terms are mostly used for historical and antique materials.

Cuir de Cordoue originated from North Africa and was introduced to Spain as early as the ninth century. In Spain such embossed leather hangings were known as guadamecí, from the Libyan town of Ghadames, while cordobanes ("cordovan") signified soft goat leather. In 1316, a Cuir de Cordoue guild existed in Barcelona. Spanish gold leather was popular until the early seventeenth century.

In the fifteenth or sixteenth century, the technique reached the Low Countries, first in Flanders and Brabant, where it was further developed. Though there were craftsmen in several cities (such as Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent), the major handicraft center for gold leather was Mechelen, where it was mentioned as early as 1504. In the Dutch Republic gold leather-making flourished in the seventeenth century in Amsterdam, The Hague and Middelburg. In Amsterdam, at least eleven gold leather-makers were active. One of them, Hans le Maire, because of the smell, the need for water, wind and light, working at the edge of the city or in Vreeland, used up to 16,000 hides of calves and some 170,000 leaves of silver annually.

Dutch Cuir de Cordoue was exported to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, China and Japan. The last Amsterdam gold leather merchant Willem van den Heuvel closed around 1680, but the trade and production continued in Flanders and Northern France.

With the advent of printed wallpaper from about 1650, often imported from China as well as made in Europe, the far more expensive leather wallcoverings began to decline, though they continued to be used, in a rather revivalist sprit, in very luxurious homes.

Embossed wall coverings made to imitate antique embossed leather include Tynecastle, or Modeled Canvas. It was developed and patented in 1874 by designer W. Scott Morton (1840–1903). It was made by hand pressing canvas into carved wooden molds and dry it. It was colored after it was stuck to the wall.

Japanese Leather Paper imitates embossed leather. It is crafted from sheets of handmade paper pressed together. It is then embossed and gilded with the field color stenciled on it. A coat of lacquer was added to protect it and create a sheen.