INLAID WORK;** a curious kind of work, composed of pieces of hard fine wood of different colours, fastened, in thin slices, on a ground, and sometimes enriched with other matters, as tortoise-shell, ivory, tin, and brads.
There is another kind of marquetry made, instead of wood, of glaases of various colours; and a third, where nothing but precious stones and the richest marbles are used: but these are more properly called mosaic work. See Mosaic.
The art of inlaying is very ancient; and is supposed to have passed from the east to the west, as one of the spoils brought to the Romans from Asia. Indeed it was then but a simple thing; nor did it arrive at any tolerable perfection till the 15th century among the Italians: it seems, however, to have arrived at its height in the 17th century among the French.
Till John of Verona, a contemporary with Raphael, the finest works of this kind were only black and white, which are what we now call Morefoss; but that religious, who had a genius for painting, stained his woods with dyes or boiled oils, which penetrated them. But he went no farther than the representing buildings and perspectives, which requires no great variety of colours. Those who succeeded him, not only improved on the invention of dyeing the woods, by a secret which they found of burning them without consuming, which served exceedingly well for the shadows; but had also the advantage of a number of fine new woods of naturally bright colours, by the discovery of America. With these affinances the art is now capable of imitating any thing; whence some call it the art of painting in wood.
The ground whereon the pieces are to be ranged and glued, is ordinarily of oak or fir well dried; and to prevent warping, is composed of several pieces glued together. The wood to be used, being reduced into leaves, of the thickness of a line, is either stained with some colour, or made black for shadow; which some effect by putting it in sand extremely heated over the fire, others by steeping it in lime water and sublimate, and others in oil of sulphur.—Thus coloured, the contours of the piece are formed according to the parts of the design they are to represent. This last is the most difficult part of marquetry, and that wherein most patience and attention are required. The two chief instruments used herein are the saw and the vice; the one to hold the matters to be formed; the other, to take off from the extremes, according to occasion. The vice is of wood, having one of its chaps fixed; the other moveable, and is opened and shut by the foot, by means of a cord fastened to a treadle. Its structure is very ingenious, yet simple enough.
The leaves to be formed (for there are frequently three or four of the same kind formed together) are put within the chaps of the vice, after being glued on the outermost part of the design whose profile they are to follow; then the workman preling the treadle, and thus holding fast the piece, with his saw runs over all the outlines of the design.—By thus joining and forming three or four pieces together, they not only gain time, but the matter is likewise the better enabled to sustain the efforts of the saw; which, how delicate soever it may be, and how lightly forever the workman may conduct it, without such a precaution would be apt to raise splinters, to the ruin of the beauty of the work.
When the work is to consist of one single kind of wood, or of tortoise-shell, on a copper or tin ground, or vice versa, they only form two leaves on one another, i.e., a leaf of metal, and a leaf of wood or shell; this they call sawing in counter parts; for by filling the vacuities of one of the leaves by the pieces coming out of the other, the metal may serve as a ground to the wood, and the wood to the metal.
All the pieces thus formed with the saw, and marked to know them again, and the shadow given in the manner already mentioned; they veneer or fasten each in its place on the common ground; using for that purpose the best English glue.
The whole is put in a press to dry, planed over, and polished with the skin of the sea-dog, wax, and shave-grass; as in simple veneering; with this difference, however, that in marquetry the fine branches, and several of the more delicate parts of the figures, are touched up and finished with a graver.
It is the cabinetmakers, joiners, and toymen, among us who work in marquetry; it is the enamellers and stone-cutters who deal in mosaic works; the instruments used in the former are mostly the same with those used by the ebonists.