Intarsia and marquetry – what is the difference?

Intarsia is pictures and patterns in woods of different colours that are inlaid into recesses in a solid surface. Marquetry is patterns of veneer pieces that are assembled into a whole sheet of veneer and glued to the furniture. In everyday speech intarsia is often used for both, but the techniques differ: intarsia had its heyday in the Renaissance, marquetry in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Facts

Two ways of laying patterns in wood

Both techniques make pictures of wood in different colours, but in different ways. In intarsia, recesses are cut in a solid surface and pieces of other woods are set into them, rather like a stone set in a ring. In marquetry the pattern is sawn from thin sheets of veneer, and the pieces are assembled into a whole sheet that is glued to the furniture in one piece.

The difference sounds technical, but it can be seen. Intarsia sits in a solid surface and often has a few woods and clear edges. Marquetry covers whole surfaces, can have dozens of woods and pictures with shading, and it presupposes veneer. Both terms are in the glossary, and the properties of veneer are explained in the guide to veneer and solid wood.

Intarsia: the illusions of the Renaissance

Intarsia reached its peak in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. In choir stalls and studies, wall panels were made with shelves, instruments and books in perspective, laid so skilfully in wood that they seem to be within reach. Federico da Montefeltro’s studiolo at Urbino from the 1470s is the best-known example.

The technique lived on in simpler furniture and in vernacular work, where initials, dates and stars were inlaid in solid cupboard doors and chest lids. In Swedish it is often called inläggning (inlay), which explains why the word intarsia is used so broadly: for many it simply means patterns of wood.

Marquetry and Boulle work

Marquetry developed when veneer became common in the 17th century, first in the Netherlands and then in France. Louis XIV’s cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle gave his name to a variant of his own, Boulle work, in which tortoiseshell and brass are sawn out in the same pattern simultaneously. This gives two patterns: one with brass in tortoiseshell and a reverse one, with tortoiseshell in brass, which could be used on separate pieces of furniture.

Boulle’s cabinet shows the technique in full splendour, with gilt-bronze mounts protecting the edges. The style spread across Europe, and in the Baroque flowers in marquetry of walnut and other woods became fashionable in England and the Netherlands too; the period is described under the Baroque.

The masters of the 18th century: Riesener, Haupt and Roentgen

In the 18th century marquetry reached its peak with the cabinetmakers of Paris. Louis XV’s cylinder desk has pictures of poetry and science on the sides, and Jean-Henri Riesener’s chests of drawers for Marie-Antoinette have lattices of marquetry with small flowers at each intersection.

Georg Haupt learned the technique in Paris and became Gustav III’s court cabinetmaker; his chests of drawers with flower baskets and trellis patterns are counted among the finest in Swedish furniture. At Neuwied on the Rhine David Roentgen made pictorial marquetry in which the wood is dyed and shaded so that the pictures acquire depth like paintings, without anything being painted. The transition from Rococo to Gustavian is described in the guide to Rococo and Gustavian.

How the picture gets its shadows

The marquetry makers had several ways of bringing the pictures to life. Pieces could be dipped in hot sand, so that the edge was scorched dark and gave a shadow, and fine lines could be engraved and filled with a dark mass. Wood was also dyed, and many marquetry pieces that look brown today were originally green, blue or red; the light has bleached the colours.

In the 19th century marquetry was made in series with machine saws, and the Art Nouveau cabinetmakers in Nancy took up the technique again. Louis Majorelle’s desk has plants in marquetry on the edges of the writing surface. More furniture words are collected in the guide to furniture terms.

How to tell them apart

Look at the edge and at the surface around the pattern. If the pattern sits in a solid board, with the same wood all around it and visible end grain at the edge, it is intarsia. If the pattern covers the whole surface and ends at an edge with a moulding or a veneer border, it is marquetry. If pieces lift or are missing, you often see the carcass wood beneath: then it is marquetry.

Count the woods too and look for shadows. A few woods with straight edges point to intarsia or simple inlay, many woods with shaded leaves and flowers to marquetry. Tortoiseshell and brass in a pattern and its negative are Boulle work.

How to recognise it

Exercise

A chest of drawers has a bouquet of flowers in many woods covering the whole front, and where a piece is missing pine shows beneath. Which technique is it?