INTARSIA AND MARQUETRY
OTHER VOLUMES OF THE SERIES
By the same Author
Mural Painting—the Decoration of the Wall Surface by means of Paint
Mosaic and Marble Inlay for Floor, Wall, and Vault
HANDBOOKS FOR THE DESIGNER AND
CRAFTSMAN
Intarsia and Marquetry
BY
F. HAMILTON JACKSON
Examiner to the Board of Education in Principles
of Ornament
With Illustrations from Photographs and from Drawings and Tracings by the Author
LONDON
SANDS & COMPANY
1903
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM HODGE AND COMPANY
GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SERIES
If there is one quality which more than another marks the demand of the present day it is the requirement of novelty. In every direction the question which is asked is not, "Is this fresh thing good? Is it appropriate to, and well-fitted for, its intended uses?" but "Is it novel?" And the constant change of fashion sets a premium upon the satisfaction of this demand and enlists the commercial instinct on the side of perpetual change. While there are directions in which this desire is not altogether harmful, since at least many monstrosities offend our eyes but for a short time, a full compliance with it by the designer is likely to prove disastrous to his reputation, and recent phases in which an attempt has been made to throw aside as effete and outworn the forms which have gradually grown with the centuries, and to produce something entirely fresh and individual, have shown how impossible it is at this period of the world's history to dispense with tradition, and, escaping from the accumulated experience of the race, set forth with childlike naïveté. Careful study of these experiments discloses the fact that in as far as they are successful in proportion and line they approach the successes of previous generations, and that the undigested use of natural motifs results not in nourishment but in nightmare.
The object aimed at by this series of handbooks is the recall of the designer and craftsman to a saner view of what constitutes originality by setting before them something of the experience of past times, when craft tradition was still living and the designer had a closer contact with the material in which his design was carried out than is usual at present. Since both design and craftsmanship as known until the end of the 18th century were the outcome of centuries of experience of the use of material and of the endeavour to meet daily requirements, it may be justly called folly to cast all this aside as the fripperies of bygone fashion which cramp the efforts of the designer, and attempt to start afresh without a rag of clothing, even if it were possible. At the same time it is not intended to advocate the direct copyism of any style, whether regarded as good, bad, or indifferent. Some minds find inspiration in the contemplation of natural objects, while others find the same stimulus in the works of man. The fashion of present opinion lays great stress upon the former source of inspiration, and considers the latter heretical, while, with a strange inconsistency, acclaiming a form of design based upon unnatural contortions of growth, and a treatment which is often alien to the material. It is the hope of the author to assist the second class of mind to the rivalling of the ancient glories of design and craftsmanship, and perhaps even to convert some of those whose talents are at present wasted in the chase of the will-o'-the-wisp of fancied novelty and individuality. Much of what appears to the uneducated and ill-informed talent as new is really but the re-discovery of motifs which have been tried and abandoned by bygone masters as unsuitable, and a greater acquaintance with their triumphs is likely, one would hope, to lead students, whether designers or craftsmen, to view with disgust undigested designs indifferently executed which have little but a fancied novelty to recommend them.
It is intended that each volume shall contain an historical sketch of the phase of design and craft treated of, with examples of the successful overcoming of the difficulties to be encountered in its practice, workshop recipes, and the modes of producing the effects required, with a chapter upon the limitations imposed by the material and the various modes of evading those limitations adopted by those who have not frankly accepted them.
PREFACE
The subject treated of in this handbook has, until lately, received scant attention in England; and except for short notices of a general nature contained in such books as Waring's "Arts Connected with Architecture," technical descriptions, such as those in Holtzapffel's "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation," and a few fugitive papers, has not been treated in the English language. On the Continent it has, however, been the subject of considerable research, and in Italy, Germany, and France books have been published
The books from which I have drawn my information are principally the following:—
In Italian—Borghese and Banchi's "Nuovi documenti per la storia dell' Arte Senese"; Brandolese's "Pitture, sculture, &c., di Padova"; Caffi's "Dei lavori d'intaglio in legname e d'intarsia nel Cattedrale di Ferrara"; Calvi's "Dei professori de belle arti che fiorirono in Milano ai tempi dei Visconti, &c."; Saba Castiglione's "Ricordi"; Erculei's paper in his "Catalogue of the Exhibition of works of carving and inlay held at Rome in 1885"; Finocchietti's "Report on carving and inlaid work in the Jurors' report on the Exhibition of 1867 in Paris"; Lanzi's "History of Painting in Italy"; Locatelli's "Iconografia Italiana"; Marchese's "Lives of Dominican Artists"; Milanesi's "Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese"; Morelli's "Notizie d'opere di disegno nella prima metà dell' Secolo XVI."; Tassi's "Vite di pittori, architetti, &c., Bergamaschi"; Temanza's "Vite dei piu celebri architetti, &c., Dominicani"; Tiraboschi's "Biblioteca Modenese"; Della Valle's "Lettere Senesi sopra le belle Arti"; Vasari's "Lives," with Milanesi's notes and corrections, and papers in the "Bullettino di Arti, Industrie e Curiosità Veneziane," the "Atti e memorie della Società Savonese," the "Archivio Storico dell' Arte and its continuation as L'Arte," and the "Archivio Storico Lombardo," by such men as Michele Caffi, G. M. Urb, Ottavio Varaldo, Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri and L. T. Belgrano.
In German—Becker and Hefner Alteneck's "Kunstwerke and Geräths Schaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance"; Bucher's "Geschichte der Technischen Kunst"; Burckhardt's "Additions to Kugler's Geschichte der Baukunst, and Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien"; Demmin's "Studien über die Stofflich-bildenden Künste"; Von Falke's "Geschichte des deutsches Kunstgewerbes"; Scherer's "Technik und Geschichte der Intarsia"; Schmidt's "Schloss Gottorp"; Seeman's "Kunstgewerbliche Handbücher"; Teirich's "Ornamente aus der Blüthezeit italienischer Renaissance," and articles in "Blätter für Kunstgewerbe," and the "Kunstgewerbeblatt of the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," by such men as Teirich, Issel and Ilg.
In French—Asselineau's "A. Boulle, ébéniste de Louis 14"; Burckhardt's "Le Cicerone"; Champeaux's "Le bois appliquée au mobilier," and "Le meuble"; Demmin's "Encyclopédie historique, archeologique, &c."; Luchet's "L'Arte industriel à l'Exposition Universelle de 1867," and other encyclopædias.
In English—"The handmaid to the arts"; Holtzapffel's "Turning and mechanical manipulation"; Pollen's paper on "Furniture in the Kensington Catalogue of Ancient and Modern furniture"; Leader Scott's "The Cathedral builders"; Tomlinson's "Cyclopædia of Useful Arts"; Waring's "The Arts connected with architecture"; and Digby Wyatt's "Industrial Arts of the 19th Century," together with detached articles found in various publications.
Those who desire further examples of arabesque patterns may find them in Issel's "Wandtäfelungen und Holzdecken"; Lacher's "Mustergültige holzintarsien der Deutschen Renaissance aus dem 16 und 17 Jahrhundert"; Lachner's "Geschichte der Holzbaukunst in Deutschland"; Lichtwark's "Der ornamentstich der deutschen Frührenaissance"; Meurer's "Italienische Flachornamente aus der Zeit der Renaissance"; Teirich's "Ornamente aus der Blüthezeit italienischer Renaissance," and Rhenius "Eingelegte Holzornamente der Renaissance in Schlesien von 1550-1650."
I have thought it better to run the risk of incompleteness than to overload the text with the mere names of indifferent designers and craftsmen about whom and whose work scarcely anything is known, believing that my object would be attained more surely by pointing to the work and lives of those about whose capacity there can be no question.
My thanks are due to the officials of the British Museum Library and of the Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the great assistance which they have given me in many ways, the facilities afforded me, and their unfailing kindness and courtesy; and to the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum for similar kindness and assistance.
I have also to thank my friend Mr. C. Bessant, whose experience in all kinds of cabinet work is so great, for very kindly looking over the section dealing with the processes of manufacture.
F. Hamilton Jackson.
INTARSIA AND MARQUETRY
HISTORICAL NOTES—ANTIQUITY
The word "intarsia" is derived from the Latin "interserere," to insert, according to the best Italian authorities, though Scherer says there was a similar word, "Tausia," which was applied to the inlaying of gold and silver in some other metal, an art practised in Damascus, and thence called damascening; and that at first the two words meant the same thing, but after a time one was applied to work in wood and the other to metal work. In the "Museo Borbonico," xii., p. 4, xv., p. 6, the word "Tausia" is said to be of Arabic origin, and there is no doubt that the art is Oriental. It perhaps reached Europe either by way of Sicily or through the Spanish Moors. "Marquetry," on the other hand, is a word of much later origin, and comes from the French "marqueter," to spot, to mark; it seems, therefore, accurate to apply the former term to those inlays of wood in which a space is first sunk in the solid to be afterwards filled with a piece of wood (or sometimes some other material) cut to fit it, and to use the latter for the more modern practice of cutting several sheets of differently-coloured thin wood placed together to the same design, so that by one cutting eight or ten copies of different colours may be produced which will fit into each other, and only require subsequent arranging and glueing, as well as for the more artistic effects of the marquetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, which were produced with similar veneers. The process of inlaying is of the most remote antiquity, and the student may see in the cases of the British Museum, at the Louvre, and in other museums, examples of both Assyrian and Egyptian inlaid patterns of metal and ivory, or ebony or vitreous pastes, upon both wood and ivory, dating from the 8th and 10th centuries before the Christian Era, or earlier. The Greeks and Romans also made use of it for costly furniture and ornamental sculpture; in Book 23 of the "Odyssey," Ulysses, describing to Penelope the bride-bed which he had made, says—"Beginning from this head-post, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold, and of silver, and of ivory"; the statue and throne of Jupiter at Olympia had ivory, ebony, and many other materials used in its construction, and the chests in which clothes were kept,
A few notes on the exceptional scantlings of timber in antiquity may be interesting, though not strictly belonging to our subject. A stick of fir prepared to repair a bridge over the Naumachia in the time of Nero was left unused for some time to satisfy public curiosity. It measured 120 feet by 2 feet the entire length. The mast of the vessel which brought the large obelisk from Egypt, afterwards set up in the Circus Maximus, and now in front of S. John Lateran, was 100 feet by 1½ feet, and the tree out of which it was cut required four men, holding hands, to surround it. A stick of cedar, cut in Cyprus and used as the mast of an undecireme, or 11 banked galley of Demetrius, took three men to span the tree out of which it was cut. It was the exceptional sizes of such pieces of timber, and veneers cut from them, which made the value of tables in Rome.
ITALY IN MEDIÆVAL AND RENAISSANCE TIMES
The mediæval craft seems, however, to have been derived from the East, though Theophilus mentions the Germans as clever practitioners in woodwork. A minnesinger's harp of the 14th century, figured by Hefner Alteneck, appears to bear out his remark, though later in date, with its powdering of geometrical inlays and curiously-designed sprigs, which might almost have been produced by the latest art craze, which apes archaic simplicity. It belonged to the knightly poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, who died in 1445; the colours used are two browns, black, white, and green. The oriental inlays of ivory upon wood, elaborate and beautiful geometrical designs, are still produced in India in much the same fashion as in the middle ages, for the possibilities of geometric design were exhausted by the Arabs in Egypt and the Moors in Spain; and in Venice there was a quarter inhabited by workmen of the latter race who made both metal work and objects in wood. Except for the inlaid ivory casket in the Capella Palatina, at Palermo, which seems to be a work of Norman times, we have no work of the kind which can be dated with precision before the appearance in the north of Italy of the similar "lavoro alla Certosa," or "tarsia alla Certosina"; but since inlaying with small pieces of marble and vitreous pastes was practised in central and southern Italy certainly from the 12th century, there is little difficulty in imagining how its use arose. This work has its derivative still existing in England in the so-called "Tonbridge ware," which is made by arranging rods of wood in a pattern and glueing them together, after which sections are sliced off—the same proceeding, in effect, as that which the Egyptians made use of with rods or threads of glass. One must allow, however, that the wooden border inlays, which are also placed under this heading, show greater craft mastery, as the examples appended show, which are typical instances. The chair-back from S. Ambrogio, Milan, is a characteristic example of the simpler form on a tolerably large scale.
Plate 1.—Patterns used in Borders. Plate 2.—Various Patterns of Borders.
Historians are agreed that the cradle of Italian carving and inlaying was Siena, where there is mention of a certain Manuello, who, with his son Parti, worked in the ancient choir of the Cathedral
Domenico di Nicolò worked for 13 years at the chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, using some of Taddeo Bartoli's designs, and also did the doors of the Sala di Balia, or of the Pope. This man, who was one of the best Sienese masters of intarsia and carving, and was head of the Opera del Duomo in 1400, and whose work brought him so much reputation that his family name of Spinelli was changed for himself and his descendants to Del Coro, or Dei Cori, is an example and a proof of the small profit which was to be made even then by conscientious and careful work. He was not only a worker in wood, in 1424 he also did the panels of the Cathedral floor, representing David and Goliath, the Amorite Kings, and Samson, ascribed by Vasari to Duccio; in 1415 he was paid 42 lire for a tabernacle made of gesso, while as early as February 28, 1397-8, he was paid 32 lire 10 soldi for 32½ days' work on a window above the pulpit; yet on May 13, 1421, he petitions the priors and captain of the people to this effect. He says that he is poor, and cannot meet the requirements of his family and apprentices, each of whom, he says, costs 30 or 40 florins a year, and therefore suggests that he should have two or three boys to teach, and that the priors should subsidize him for that purpose, and binds himself to teach them all he can without reserve. The priors and captains recommended to the council that he should be paid by the chamberlain of Bicherna 200 lire, free of tax, by the year, "nomine provisionis libr: ducentos den: nitidas de gabella," and should have two or three Sienese youths to teach, and the council passed the recommendation the same day. Twenty-six years later, January 14, 1446-7, he appears again in the records with a petition to the Signory. He says that he has always, from his youth up, done his best to provide for his family, and that by his craft he has always tried to bring honour on the city and spread the fame of his works. That as they know he was granted money to teach his art to any young man who wanted to learn it, but "because this art was, and is, little profitable, there was no one who wished to go on with it except Master Mactio di Bernacchino, who followed the art thoroughly, and became an excellent master." That, as he thought he was fairly prosperous, he gave up the grant (like an honest man!), but the expenses of marrying and dowering his daughters had been so great, and added to the losses caused by the small profits on his work, had reduced him to such poverty that he did not see how he could go on, being 84 years of age, or thereabouts, and having a sick wife. He therefore asked to have a small pension settled on him for the few years he and his wife had to live. He was granted two florins a month, but three years later all mention of him ceases.
The choir of the Chapel of the Palace had been given in 1414 to Simone d'Antonio and Antonio Paolo Martini, but they did not satisfy the public, so it was taken from them and given to Domenico di Nicolò, August 26, 1415. The tarsie are 21 in number, and represent the clauses of the apostles' creed and the symbols of the apostles. The unsuccessful work was given to the prior of the Servites. In the Communal records occur the following, March 31, 1428:—"Domenico di Nicolò, called Domenico del Coro, is to have 45 florins at 4 lire the florin for his salary and the workmanship of the door which he has made at the entrance of the Sala del Papa in the Communal Palace, which salary was declared by Guido of Turin and Daniello di Neri Martini, two of the three workmen upon the contract of the said door, at 180 lire. And is to have 3152 lire for his salary and workmanship of 21 seats made in the Palace of the Magnificent Signors, with all both 'fornamenti et facti,' in full according to his contract"—accepted by Guido di Torino and Daniello di Neri Martini. He was called to Orvieto in 1416 to refix the roof of the Cathedral; he was not to have more than 200 florins a year, but if he came himself all expenses were to be paid. This suggests an appointment like that of a consulting engineer.
From Siena masters were continually sent to the other great towns to design and carry out works of architecture, sculpture, and woodwork, as entries in Sienese documents show. In early times the various arts connected with building were in close union, and it appears tolerably certain that one guild sheltered them all, proficiency being required in several crafts and mastery in one. We find the same man acting in one place as master builder or architect, and sometimes only giving advice, while elsewhere he is sculptor or woodworker. The painter, the mosaicist, and the designer for intarsia are confused in a similar manner. Borsieri calls Giovanni de' Grassi, the Milanese painter (known as Giovanni de Melano at first, a pupil of Giotto and Taddeo Gaddi; pictures of his are in the Academy, Florence, and in the cloister of S. Caterina Milan), "an excellent architect"; and he also worked in relief, besides conducting very important architectural works. He says that about 1385 Giovanni Galeazzo opened an academy of fine art in his palace, which was conducted by Giovanni de' Grassi and Michelino da Besozzo. On June 19, 1391, he was paid five florins for models executed by him, and something for the expense of execution in marble by another hand. In 1391 he was called upon by the Council of the Duomo, and after four months of uncertainty was assigned the position and pay of first engineer, with a servant who was paid by the Council. He did the door of the S. Sacristy; it was finished in July, 1395, when he was ordered to decorate it with gilding and blue. He also made designs for capitals and window traceries, and carved a God the Father for a centre boss of the vault of the N. Sacristy. He illuminated the initials, &c., of a copy of the Ambrosian ritual of
The oldest of the differentiated guilds appears to be that of the painters, at least in Siena, where one was established in 1355, while in Florence they were obliged to enrol themselves in the "Art" of the "medici e speziali," unless they preferred, as many of them did, to be reckoned with the goldsmiths. In Siena the Goldsmiths' Guild followed the Painters' Guild in 1361, while the workers in stone formed their guild still later. Among the painters were included designers of every sort—moulders, and workers in plaster, stucco, and papier maché, gold beaters, tin beaters, &c., and masters and apprentices in stained glass, also makers of playing cards—a most comprehensive guild. Vasari, in his life of Jacopo Casentino, architect and painter, says, however, "Towards 1349 the painters of the old Greek style, and those of the new, disciples of Cimabue, finding themselves in great number, united and formed at Florence a company under the name and protection of S. Luke the Evangelist"; and Baldinucci, in his "Notizie dei professori di disegno," prints the articles of association at length. Others hold that the Confraternità dei Pittori was not founded till 1386.