Intarsia, the ancient art of decorating furniture and wooden objects

If you like antiques, you will have seen furniture or wooden objects decorated with flowers, scenes from everyday life or geometric patterns in antique shops. Although not in relief, they look very real. They are very well made and make the object much more appreciated and attractive. If you look closely at the designs, you can see that they are part of the surface of the object, not applied or drawn on top. The method by which they are made is called inlay, an ancient art of decorating wood and wooden objects. Find out what intarsia is, when it came into being and how it is made below.

What is intarsia

We usually associate intarsia only with wood, but the method is not limited to wood. According to the DEX, intarsia is a technique for ornamenting furniture and other objects that consists of inlaying in the wood small plates and/or strips of bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl or other coloured wood. The word comes from the Latin - interserere - and means to insert, to insert.

In the English-language literature, what we identify as intarsia we find under the name of marquetry or inlay. Searching by the word intarsia we will have different images in response than we would expect. We will discover figures or 3D images constructed from several large pieces of wood of different woods, sometimes coloured.

Between the two terms - inlay (to interleave, to interlock) and marquetry (inlay) there are however differences. Inlay (inlay) refers to the creation of an inlay in wood that involves cutting out the base wood, filling the cutout with the new material and finishing the surface so that it is smooth and even. Looking at it this way and inserting a butterfly (bow tie) into the surface of a table top for decoration or to stop a crack appearing in the wood can also be called an inlay. But inlaying can also make very fine designs with materials such as brass, mother-of-pearl, ivory and exotic veneers, true works of art.

Marquetry is the art of cutting out several shapes from thin (aesthetic) veneer of different essences and colours, sometimes also of other materials (brass, mother-of-pearl), then assembling them into a final image that is placed on the surface of the object we want to decorate.

An art known for almost 5000 years

Wooden objects with inlays are mentioned since ancient times. The oldest object mentioned dates from 2600 BC and was discovered in the city of Ur in Mesopotamia. In Homer's Odyssey there is a fragment in which Ulysses speaks of Penelope's bed, saying that it is made with inlays of gold, silver and ivory. In ancient Egypt the pharaohs had wooden objects inlaid with gold, silver and patterns made with different kinds of wood.

The art of inlay reached Europe via the south, Sicily and Andalusia, from northern Africa. The earliest records of this craft are from Sienna, Italy, where inlaid furniture has been found in churches since the 11th century. The heyday of the technique begins with the Italian Renaissance and peaks in the 17th and 18th centuries, when it was extensively used to decorate furniture and woodwork in Versailles and other famous palaces in France, Germany and England.

A prominent representative of this art was Andre Charles Boulle (1642-1732), a French cabinetmaker considered a true revolutionary in the field. Boulle studied the cultural adaptations of inlays, combining them into a unique furniture inlay. His method influenced furniture decoration in the palaces of the time for centuries.

What is important when making an inlay

The wood veneers used must be straight grained, resistant to expansion and contraction and easy to cut so as not to splinter. The pattern is formed by the different colour and appearance of the wood species. Maple veneers are the most commonly used, oak, mahon, palisander, nuc, frasin, chestnut, venge, ebony and other exotic species. Combining the colours of these species produces bouquets of flowers, animals, geometric patterns or even scenes from everyday life.

The tools with which the veneers are cut must be very fine and sharp, and the craftsman must master the technique very well in order to achieve straight edges that blend harmoniously. If you venture to make such veneer decorations you will also need templates for the patterns, paper to mount the pattern, glue.

This technique can be used to decorate the surface of pieces of furniture, music or jewellery boxes, parquet (a technique called parquetry) or panels decorating ceilings and walls.

Intarsia, yesterday and today

In the past, intarsia was entirely handmade, from cutting the wood to assembling, sanding and lacquering. Now, with all the modern tools and machinery, inlaying has become much simpler, with fine cuts made using lasers and CNC machines.

Being a fine art, which always needed skilled and talented craftsmen, but also time to make the intricate designs, intarsia was much less used after 1900 and only for special and expensive objects. However, modern techniques have allowed a revival of the art. Many designs (lace, flowers, birds) can be bought ready-made. There are also templates available for enthusiasts to use when making designs.

Now the most famous centre for inlaid furniture is in Italy, in Sorrento, near Naples. Here they make real works of art, known and recognised all over the world.

I hope you find the above information useful. As usual, additions are welcome. And if you have any questions or queries, please leave them in the space below. I'm sure I'll reply.