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Marquetry is the craft of covering a structural carcass with veneer forming decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The result may be furniture, decorated small objects or free-standing pictures. more...

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Marquetry differs from the more ancient craft of inlay, in which a solid body of one material is cut out to receive sections of another.

Materials

The veneer used is primarily wood, but may include bone or ivory, turtle-shell (conventionally called "tortoiseshell"), mother-of-pearl or pewter, brass and fine metals. Marquetry using colored straw was a specialty of some European spa resorts from the end of the 18th century. Many exotic woods as well as common European varieties can be employed.

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 called partie and contre-partie, "part" and "counterpart"). Simple geometric marquetry designs reminiscent of basketwork, tiling or trelliswork, are often called 'parquetry,' in reference to the similar patterning of parquet flooring.

Marquetry as a modern craft is most commonly knife-cut: the knife used is therefore of paramount importance. Other requirements are a pattern of some kind, some cheap (i.e. not very sticky) clear sticky tape, PVA glue and a base-board. Finishing the piece will require sand-paper or wire wool, possibly with a sanding block. Either ordinary varnish or the techniques of french polish can be used to seal the piece.

History

The technique of veneered marquetry had its inspiration in 16th century Florence (and at Naples). Marquetry elaborated upon Florentine techniques of inlaying solid marble slabs with designs formed of fitted marbles, jaspers and semi-precious stones. This work, called opere di commessi, is known in English as pietra dura. In Florence, the Chapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo is completely covered in a colored marble facing using this demanding jig-sawn technique.

Techniques of wood marquetry were developed in Antwerp and other Flemish centers of luxury cabinet-making during the early 17th century. The craft was imported full-blown to France, to create furniture of unprecedented luxury being made at the manufactory of the Gobelins, to decorate Versailles and the other royal residences of Louis XIV. Early masters of French marquetry were the Fleming Pierre Golle 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 employing tortoiseshell and brass with pewter in arabesque or intricately foliate designs. Boulle marquetry dropped out of favor in the 1720s, but was revived in the 1780s. The most famous royal French furniture veneered with marquetry are the pieces delivered by Jean Henri Riesener in the 1770s and 1780s. The Bureau du Roi was the most famous amongst these famous masterpieces.

Read more at Wikipedia.org