 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Marquetry" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Marquetry (also spelled asmarqueterie; from the Frenchmarqueter, to variegate) is the art andcraft of applying pieces ofveneer to a structure to form decorative patterns or designs. The technique may be applied tocase furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to freestanding pictorial panels appreciated in their own right.
Marquetry differs from the more ancient craft ofinlay, orintarsia, in which a solid body of one material is cut out to receive sections of another to form the surface pattern. The word derives from a Middle French word meaning "inlaid work".
The veneers used are primarily woods, but may include bone, ivory, turtle-shell (conventionally called "tortoiseshell"),mother-of-pearl,pewter,brass or fine metals. Marquetry using coloredstraw was a specialty of some European spa resorts from the end of the 18th century. Many exotic woods as well as common varieties can be employed, from the near-white ofboxwood[1][a] to the near-black ofebony; colors not found in nature can be achieved by applying dye to a veneer that retains stains well, such assycamore.
The French cabinet makerAndré-Charles Boulle (1642–1732) specialized in furniture using metal and either wood ortortoiseshell together, the latter acting as the background.
The simplest kind of marquetry uses only two sheets of veneer, which are temporarily glued together and cut with a fine saw, producing two contrasting panels of identical design, (in French calledpartie andcontre-partie, "part" and "counterpart").
Marquetry as a modern craft most commonly uses knife-cut veneers. However, the knife-cutting technique usually requires a lot of time. For that reason, many marquetarians have switched tofret or scroll saw techniques. Other requirements are a pattern of some kind, some brown gummed tape (this kind of tape is used because as its moistened glue dries the tape shrinks, pulling the veneer pieces closer together),PVA glue and a base-board with balancing veneers on the alternate face to compensate stresses. Finishing the piece will require fine abrasive paper, always backed by a sanding block. Choices of sealers and finishes that can be applied include ordinary varnish, special varnishes, polyurethane (either oil or water based), wax, andFrench polish.
Sand shading is a process used to make a picture appear to be more three-dimensional. A piece of veneer to be incorporated into a picture is partially submerged in hot sand for a few seconds.
Another shading process is engraving fine lines into a picture and filling them with a mixture ofIndia ink andshellac.
Furniture inlaid with precious woods, metals, glass and stones is known from the ancient world and Roman examples have been recovered from the first century sites ofPompeii andHerculaneum demonstrating that the technique was highly advanced.[2] The revival of the technique of veneered marquetry had its inspiration in 16th centuryFlorence and atNaples ultimately from classical inspiration. Marquetry elaborated upon Florentine techniques of inlaying solid marble slabs with designs formed of fitted marbles, jaspers and semi-precious stones. This work, calledopere di commessi, has medieval parallels in Central Italian "Cosmati"-work of inlaid marble floors, altars and columns. The technique is known in English aspietra dura, for the "hardstones" used:onyx,jasper,cornelian,lapis lazuli and colored marbles. In Florence, theChapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo is completely covered in a colored marble facing using this demanding jig-sawn technique.
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 | |
 The Inlay Technique of Marquetry,J. Paul Getty Museum | |
| LaunchPad: Roentgen Marquetry,Art Institute of Chicago |
Techniques of wood marquetry were developed inAntwerp and other Flemish centers of luxurycabinet-making during the early 16th century. The craft was imported full-blown to France after the mid-seventeenth century, to create furniture of unprecedented luxury being made at theroyal manufactory of the Gobelins, charged with providing furnishings to decorateVersailles and the other royal residences ofLouis XIV. Early masters of French marquetry were the FlemingPierre Gole and his son-in-law,André-Charles Boulle, who founded a dynasty of royal and Parisian cabinet-makers (ébénistes) and gave his name to a technique of marquetry employingtortoiseshell and brass with pewter inarabesque or intricately foliate designs.Boulle marquetry dropped out of favor in the 1720s, but was revived in the 1780s. In the decades between, carefully matched quarter-sawn veneers sawn from the same piece of timber were arranged symmetrically on case pieces and contrasted withgilt-bronze mounts. Floral marquetry came into favor in Parisian furniture in the 1750s, employed by cabinet-makers likeBernard II van Risamburgh,Jean-Pierre Latz andSimon-François Oeben. The most famous royal French furniture veneered with marquetry are the pieces delivered byJean Henri Riesener in the 1770s and 1780s. TheBureau du Roi was the most famous amongst these famous masterpieces.
Marquetry was not ordinarily a feature of furniture made outside large urban centers. Nevertheless, marquetry was introduced intoLondon furniture at theRestoration ofCharles II in 1660, the product of immigrant Dutch 'inlayers', whose craft traditions owed a lot to Antwerp. Panels of elaborately scrolling "seaweed" marquetry of box or holly contrasting with walnut appeared on table tops, cabinets, and long-case clocks. At the end of the 17th century, a new influx of FrenchHuguenot craftsmen went toLondon, but marquetry in England had little appeal in the anti-French, more Chinese-inspired high-style English furniture (mis-called 'Queen Anne') afterca 1720. Marquetry was revived as a vehicle ofNeoclassicism and a 'French taste' in London furniture, starting in the late 1760s. Cabinet-makers associated with London-made marquetry furniture, 1765–1790, includeThomas Chippendale and less familiar names, likeJohn Linnell, the French craftsman Pierre Langlois, and the firm ofWilliam Ince and John Mayhew.
Although marquetry is a technique separate from inlay, English marquetry-makers were called "inlayers" throughout the 18th century. In Paris, before 1789, makers of veneered or marquetry furniture (ébénistes) belonged to a separate guild from chair-makers and other furniture craftsmen working in solid wood (menuisiers).
Tiling patterning has been more highly developed in the Islamic world than anywhere else, and many extraordinary examples of inlay work have come from Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon andIran.
AtTonbridge andRoyal Tunbridge Wells, England, souvenir "Tunbridge wares"—small boxes and the like—made from the mid-18th century onwards, were veneered with panels of minute wood mosaics, usually geometric, but which could include complicated subjects like landscapes. They were made by laboriously assembling and gluing thin strips and shaped rods, which then could be sliced crossways to provide numerous mosaic panels all of the same design.
Marquetry was a feature of some centers of German cabinet-making from c. 1710. The craft and artistry ofDavid Roentgen, Neuwied, (and later at Paris as well) was unsurpassed, even in Paris, by any 18th-century marquetry craftsman.
Marquetry was not a mainstream fashion in 18th-century Italy, but the neoclassical marquetry ofGiuseppe Maggiolini, made in Milan at the end of the century is notable.
The classic illustrated description of 18th century marquetry-making was contributed byRoubo to theEncyclopédie des Arts et Métiers, 1770.
During the 1980sGeorges Vriz developed a technique called technique VRIZ, layering two veneer layers on top of each other and sanding through the top one, to the point of fiber transparency. This has been used mainly in France, by professionals and marquetry students of theÉcole Boulle. With its technique, Georges Vriz promoted a resurgence of the marquetry he called RENAISSANCE. He launched the contemporary marquetry. In the US the technique has been used at the American School of French Marquetry by one of the teachers, artist Patrice Lejeune. The school staff is also proposing a new name for it: "Given that 'piercing' is an unfortunate mistake in the veneering world, we chose to use the word "Fusion" instead, by which term the artist expresses his intention of sanding through the veneer as a decorative, textural effect, not as a mistake."
Cutting-edge tech has also been applied to marquetry. Among these islaser cutting, where the design is drawn or imported as aCAD orvector file and each piece is cut separately; each different species of wood-and thickness-may need a specific adjustment of the beam power; the offset will determine the gap between the pieces. In some cases, the beam will leave a dark edge due to the high heat required by the process.
European boxwood has a creamy white to pale yellow colour.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
