Editing Marquetry (section)

== History ==
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 of [[Pompeii]] and [[Herculaneum]] demonstrating that the technique was highly advanced.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/249232 |title=Couch and footstool with bone carvings and glass inlays |website=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] |access-date=2018-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612140158/https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/249232 |archive-date=2018-06-12 |url-status=live }}</ref> The revival of the technique of veneered marquetry had its inspiration in 16th century [[Florence]] and at [[Naples]]  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, called ''opere di commessi'', has medieval parallels in Central Italian  "[[Cosmati]]"-work of inlaid marble floors, altars and columns. The technique is known in English as [[pietra dura]], for the "hardstones" used: [[onyx]], [[jasper]], [[cornelian]], [[lapis lazuli]] and colored marbles. In Florence, the [[Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze|Chapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo]] is completely covered in a colored marble facing using this demanding jig-sawn technique.

{{External media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage=[[File:Château de Versailles, appartements de la Dauphine, cabinet intérieur, secrétaire à pente, Bernard II van Riesenbergh.jpg|210px]] | video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JcpyE01Yzc The Inlay Technique of Marquetry], [[J. Paul Getty Museum]]
| video2 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFhopfsjwi4 LaunchPad: Roentgen Marquetry], [[Art Institute of Chicago]]
}}
Techniques of wood marquetry were developed in [[Antwerp]] and other Flemish centers of luxury [[Cabinet making|cabinet-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 the [[Gobelins manufactory|royal manufactory of the Gobelins]], charged with providing furnishings to decorate [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] and the other royal residences of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]]. Early masters of French marquetry were the Fleming [[Pierre Gole]] and his son-in-law, [[André-Charles Boulle]], who founded a dynasty of royal and Parisian cabinet-makers (''[[ébéniste]]s'') and gave his name to a technique of marquetry employing ''tortoiseshell'' and brass with pewter in [[Arabesque (Islamic art)|arabesque]] 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 with [[gilt-bronze]] mounts. Floral marquetry came into favor in Parisian furniture in the 1750s, employed by cabinet-makers like [[Bernard II van Risamburgh]], [[Jean-Pierre Latz]] and [[Simon-François Oeben]]. 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.

Marquetry was not ordinarily a feature of furniture made outside large urban centers. Nevertheless, marquetry was introduced into [[Restoration style|London furniture]] at the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] of [[Charles II of England|Charles 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 French [[Huguenot]] craftsmen went to [[London]], but marquetry in England had little appeal in the anti-French, more Chinese-inspired high-style English furniture (mis-called 'Queen Anne') after ''ca'' 1720. Marquetry was revived as a vehicle of [[Neoclassicism]] and a 'French taste' in London furniture, starting in the late 1760s. Cabinet-makers associated with London-made marquetry furniture, 1765–1790, include [[Thomas Chippendale]] and less familiar names, like [[John Linnell 18th C Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer|John Linnell]], the French craftsman Pierre Langlois, and the firm of [[Ince and Mayhew|William Ince and John Mayhew]].

[[File:Silas Kopf Tangram Table.JPG|thumb|right|Modern marquetry: a [[tangram]] table by [[Silas Kopf]], with ''[[trompe-l'œil]]'' images of paper and brush made entirely of different shades of flat veneer]]
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 and [[Khatam|Iran]].  <!--this was inlay rather than marquetry?:Also, mention should be made that the Egyptian Pharaohs also commissioned works that decorated funerary objects.-->

At [[Tonbridge]] and [[Royal 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 of [[David 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 of [[Giuseppe Maggiolini]], made in Milan at the end of the century is notable.

The classic illustrated description of 18th century marquetry-making was contributed by [[André Jacob Roubo|Roubo]] to the ''Encyclopédie des Arts et Métiers,'' 1770.