60 
House & Garden 
^Ae LivindRoom 
o/h^/ie Coujxiiy Ht 
iouse 
ERHAPS no other room permits such 
adequate expression of a predilection 
for harmonious surroundings as does 
the Living Room of the modern country house. 
^ The inviting sense of comfort, the spirit 
^ of hospitality — withal, the decorative 
distinction, which should characterize this 
important room may be realized quite readily 
by recourse to this interesting establishment 
—and without the objection of prohibitive 
cost. Here, indeed, are reproductions and 
hand-wrought facsimiles of which the master- 
makers of Early English, French and Italian 
Furniture might well be proud. 
^ A visit to these twelve Galleries will 
^ reveal a wealth of suggestion not alone 
for the Living Room, but for the dignified 
Hall and Dining Room, the garden bordered 
Breakfast Room and the 
daintily arranged Chamber 
and Boudoir. 
De luxe prints of 
charming interiors 
gratis upon request 
iEurntturf 
(Oriental ISuga 
Grand Rapids Rirniture Company 
Intarsia panel 
from Cathedral of 
Savona. By Ansel- 
mo de Fornari, 
1500 
The Art of the Intarsiatore 
{Continued from page 27) 
time,—think this over, all you who 
would banish the classics from educa¬ 
tional curricula!—some of those refine¬ 
ments such as the inlaid furniture per¬ 
sisted and gained new hold on the 
affections of the public. Eastern crafts¬ 
men, however, were mainly responsible 
for this. 
As we know, inlaying did not originate 
in Italy. From India, Persia and 
Damascus it followed the early trade 
routes in mediaeval times to Europe. It 
flourished vigorously in its re-birth in 
Italy and thence it passed north. As 
early as the 13th Century Siena had be¬ 
come famous as the centre of the art of 
the intarsiatore. 
Vasari is not quite accurate in his 
statement that intarsia was introduced 
in the time of Brunelleschi and Paolo 
Uccelo, an art “namely, of the conjoin¬ 
ing woods, tinted in different colors, and 
representing with these buildings in per¬ 
spective, foliage and various fantasies of 
different kinds.” However, we do not 
know just who did introduce the art to 
the Florentines. Vasari seems to have 
thought slightingly of intarsia as he says 
it was “practiced chiefly by those per¬ 
sons who possessed more patience than 
skill in design.” But I suppose this was 
a proper attitude for him to feel called 
upon to take, as it was his business to 
glorily the painters, not the intarsiatore. 
However, he departs somewhat to add 
to the laurels of Benedetto de Maino to 
say that the presses which Benedetto 
made for the Sacristy of Santa Maria 
del Fiore were executed “with great 
magnificence and art.” 
The Desk That Melted 
He tells us, too, of the writing-desk 
which Benedetto made for Alfonso, King 
of Naples, of the two coffers for 
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, 
and he tells how unsuccessfully these 
coffers withstood the damp of the sea 
voyage, the inlaid pieces becoming 
loosened through the softening of the 
glue, so that the coffers presented a 
sorry sight when poor Benedetto opened 
the cases before the King and the court 
who had gathered to have a first peep 
at these specimens of the renowned 
craftsmanship of the Florentine. Bene¬ 
detto stuck the pieces together as best 
he could with Hungarian glue, and the 
King was somewhat appeased and fairly 
satisfied with the result. Nevertheless 
Benedetto left Hungary in mortification 
at the incident and so deeply to heart 
did he take the matter that he aban¬ 
doned intarsia except as an occasional 
excursion, and took to sculpture and 
wrought the marble pulpit in Santa 
Croce. 
By the early part of the 17th Century 
intarsia was more commonly applied to 
Italian furniture than to the more archi¬ 
tectural forms of the work which had, 
in earlier times, occu'?ied the attention 
of the intarsiatore. By this time, too, 
ebony and other dark woods inlaid with 
ivory and bone, the white inlaid parts 
being often elaborately decorated in turn 
with engraved pattern in tracery, had 
come to be most popular. 
This use of ivory or bone, often 
tinted, in conjunction with dark woods 
is also characteristic of the work of the 
Spanish craftsmen of the 17th Century, 
and at Goa the Portuguese work of this 
sort was very finely wrought, though its 
later period, as was the case in Spanish 
work, greatly deteriorated in design. As 
late as 1831 a sum amounting to $1,500,- 
000 was expended on the wood inlay 
decoration of four small rooms in the 
palace of the Escurial in Madrid. 
German Inlay 
The Germans produced an enormous 
amount of intarsia and marquetry, but 
its character was marked by a Baroque 
influence. Some of the early work is re¬ 
markably fine, as that of the Hofkirche 
in Innsbruck, but for the most part the 
later work is “ponderously delicate” or 
“delicately ponderous” as some one has 
well put it. The German cabinet¬ 
makers and inlayers who swarmed in 
Paris from the middle of the 18th Cen¬ 
tury produced much fine work under 
the demands of French taste. Of the 
{Continued on page 62) 
A writing table of late 17th Century mar¬ 
quetry of the William and Alary Period. 
From the Windsor Castle Collection 
