One noticeable feature of modern design in furniture is the revival of marquetry.  Like all mosaic work, to which branch of Industrial Art it properly belongs, this kind of decoration should be quite subordinate to the general design; but with the rage for novelty which seized public attention some forty years ago, it developed into the production of all kinds of fantastic patterns in different veneers.  A kind of minute mosaic work in wood, which was called “Tunbridge Wells work,” became fashionable for small articles.  Within the last ten or fifteen years the reproductions of what is termed “Chippendale,” and also Adam and Sheraton designs in marqueterie furniture, have been manufactured to an enormous extent.  Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and figured old mahogany and satin-wood of a hundred years ago, which needed little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy by covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers.  Simplicity was sacrificed, and veneers, thus used and abused, came to be a term of contempt, implying sham or superficial ornament.  Dickens, in one of his novels, has introduced the “Veneer” family, thus stamping the term more strongly on the popular imagination.

The method now practised in using marquetry to decorate furniture is very similar to the one explained in the description of “Boule” furniture given in Chapter VI., except that, instead of shell, the marquetry cutter uses the veneer, which he intends to be the groundwork of his design, and as in some cases these veneers are cut to the thickness of 1/16 of an inch, several layers can be sawn through at once.  Sometimes, instead of using so many different kinds of wood, when a very polychromatic effect is required, holly wood and sycamore are stained different colours, and the marquetry thus prepared, is glued on to the body of the furniture, and subsequently prepared, engraved, and polished.

This kind of work is done to a great extent in England, but still more extensively and elaborately in France and Italy, where ivory and brass, marble, and other materials are also used to enrich the effect.  This effect is either satisfactory or the reverse according as the work is well or ill-considered and executed.

It must be obvious, too, that in the production of marquetry the processes are attainable by machinery, which saves labour and cheapens productions of the commoner kinds; this tends to produce a decorative effect which is often inappropriate and superabundant.