April, 1919 
27 
woods a bark of higher price. In 
order to make a single tree sell 
many times over laminae of veneer 
have been devised; but that was not 
thought sufficient—the horns of 
animals must next be stained of 
different colors, and their teeth cut 
into sections, in order to decorate 
wood with ivory, and, at a later 
period, to veneer it all over. Then, 
after all this, man must go and 
seek his materials in the sea as 
well! For this purpose he has' 
learned to cut tortoise shell into 
sections; and of late, in the reign 
of Nero, there was a monstrous in¬ 
vention devised of destroying its 
natural appearance by paint, and 
making it sell at a still higher price 
by a successful imitation of wood.” 
Of late, in the reign of Nero! Of 
late, but how like to-day it sounds! 
And finally this exposure of 
sham, “It is in this way that the 
value of our couches is so greatly 
enhanced; it is in this way, too, 
that they bid the rich lustre of the 
terebinth to be outdone, a mock 
citrus to be made that shall be more 
valuable than the real one, and the 
grain of the maple to be feigned. 
At one time luxury was not content 
with wood; at the present day it 
sets us on buying tortoise shells in 
the guise of wood.” 
Time of Nero, indeed! What a 
l^crfect prophet you were, Pliny! 
The Origin of Inlay 
Although Pliny and the others 
had been relegated to the waste 
l)asket of the Dark Ages, not to 
emerge until Messer Petrarch and 
the other humanists of the Rennais- 
sance saved them all in the nick of 
{Continued on page 60) 
A William and Mary marquetry 
cabinet, showing the elaborate ap¬ 
plication of an intricate design 
inside and out 
A commode of the period of Louis 
XV, showing a Chinese motif in¬ 
laid in a piece of distinctly French 
workmanship 
partly inset with gold and ivory. 
Pindar, too, has something to say 
of inlaying, and of course Vitriv- 
ius and Pliny do not neglect men¬ 
tion of the important and much 
admired intarsia and marquetry of 
their time. This is what Pliny says 
in his Natural History—I quote 
from Bohn’s Translation—“Glue, 
too, plays one of the principal parts 
in all veneering and .works of mar¬ 
quetry. For this purpose the 
workmen usually employ wood 
with a threaded vein, to which they 
give the name of ‘ferulea,’ from its 
resemblance to the grain of the 
giant fennel, this part of the wood 
being preferred from its being dot¬ 
ted and wavy.” And again, “The 
wood, too, of the beech is easily 
worked, although it is brittle and 
soft. Cut into thin layers of veneer 
it is very flexible, but is only used 
for the construction of boxes and 
desks. The wood, too, of the holm 
oak is cut into veneers of remark¬ 
able thinness, the color of which is 
far from unsightly; but it is more 
particularly where it is exposed to 
friction that this wood is valued as 
being one to be depended upon.” 
Pliny on Veneers 
Pliny continues with a list of 
woods suitable for veneers, and 
makes mention of the ornamental 
woods whose appearance, he tells us 
“originated that requirement of 
luxury which displays itself in cov¬ 
ering one tree with another, and 
bestowing upon the more common 
Contrasting with the intarsia 
commode shown above is this 
elaborate marquetry cabinet of 
late nth Century French design 
