Is this inlaid ebony work special to Italy? We do not think so; we have seen many works which appeared to indicate the taste and style of France. Still, the monuments are too scarce and the duration of the fashion too ephemeral to announce it positively in this regard.
Should we connect a neighbouring invention which contained the seed of Boulle marquetry with the period and idea of ivory inlays? We mean the rare furniture in ebony inlaid with large scrolls and arabesques in engraved pewter or white metal. The effect is still more melancholy than that of ivory, the two shades contrasting more harshly with each other. We have seen pieces in this style, the elegant decoration of which might equally express Italian style or French spirit. The foliage was abundant and sought after, the masses well poised; it was not the Renaissance with its ancient reminiscences and it was not yet the art of the age of Louis XIV with its palmettes, shells, and hanging festoons, nor its canopies and draped masks. It seems possible, therefore, to attribute these works to the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII and to see the dawn of a taste special to the 17th century.
This is one of the difficulties inherent to archaeological research; at every step intermediary specimens are to be met, leading from one style to another, verging on the same periods and preventing a clear and positive classification. We wish to discover the inventors of styles, determine the character of new decorations as a whole and we find that an uninterrupted chain connects human conceptions, that nothing has been conceived from scratch. Time, from one modification to another and from progress to progress, is the great artisan of these changes, the complete evolution of which constitutes fashion as it adapts to the wants and tendencies of each age.
Ebony inlaid with ivory represents the last expression of the Renaissance; engraved pewter was analogous, employed for inlaid work in furniture of large dimensions. Ebony alone, carved and engraved, is a sort of transition between different customs and a new art. When it makes its appearance, under Henry IV and Louis XIII, furniture begins to acquire stability and development; the cabinet becomes a cupboard, the bahut, furnished with doors, has increased in bulk and will soon receive the name of commode. Seeing examples of this at Musée de Cluny, these masses which are as heavy in reality as they are ponderous in appearance, it can be understood that it is no longer a question of removing all of this on the backs of mules. Amongst them, one can also see some works which are very remarkable for their skilful sculpture: animated combats framed with garlands carved with a boldness which seems to defy the rigidity of the material. In the larger pieces of furniture we trace the influence of contemporary architecture; there are the twisted columns brought into fashion by the famous altar of St Peter’s in Rome, also in the columns, fluted at the top and covered at the base with capricious vegetation, which we found at the Tuileries and in the Louvre of Catherine de Médici.
Hans Schwanhardt, a German artist (died in 1621), invented the undulated mouldings which became multiplied in excess. Large bouquets of natural flowers, including tulips and anemones, appear on the lateral panels of the furniture in deep cut engraving; we see such represented in jewellery, enamelling, and in embroidery, in everything connected with furniture or costume.
It bears repeating that carved ebony inlaid with ivory has a melancholy appearance; therefore, throughout the first third of the 17th century, the idea to lighten up the interior of cabinets with veneered tortoise shell frames for paintings came about. If we are to believe some writers, Rubens did not hesitate to use his brush; we have seen many pieces of furniture which, if they were not his, at least belonged to his school. It was in Flanders that this description of furniture was most common, and it is quite natural to the style and gorgeous colouring of the greatest artists of the age.
Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, known as Lo Scheggia, and workshop, Tiberius Gracchus and Cornelia, 1465–1470. Poplar wood, cut on the first or last board of the trunk, 45 × 174.7 × 1.8 cm. Castle of Écouen, Musée national de la Renaissance.
Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, known as Lo Scheggia, and workshop, Unindentified Story, 1465–1470. Poplar wood, cut on the first or last board of the trunk, 45 × 174.7 × 1.5 cm. Castle of Écouen, Musée national de la Renaissance.
Furniture inlaid with stones
The Renaissance did not limit its aim to mere elegance of form and the scientific construction of furniture. As soon as its cabinet makers had ornamented their credenzas and cabinets of architectural structure with masterly sculptures, they aspired to additional splendour and enriched the entablatures and pedestals of columns with panelling of marble in various forms and colours.
Italy researched further, and by an excess of luxury, perhaps because original genius had become exhausted, and substituted rare and precious materials for the masterpieces of art, and transformed the stipi, armoires, clocks, and even the tables into mosaics of hard stones, pietra dura. Did this new practice initiate in Florence? We believe so because the application of stone became known as Florentine mosaic and has retained this title ever since.
We will endeavour to follow the different phases of this transformation, the progress of which must have been gradual. First the ebony cabinets received lapis lazuli or jasper columns, with pedestals and entablatures of gilt-bronze, the compartments of the drawers or the panelled spaces between the columns were ornamented with oval or polygonal medallions of agate, carnelian, jasper and lapis lazuli. Gilded mouldings soon became frames for these rich compositions. One step further remained to be taken, and was soon accomplished: wood was no longer used except as a simple framework into which the real mosaic works were set, a mosaic certainly very different from the painting in close set cubes invented by the veterans, which had flourished so greatly in Italy since the Middle Ages.
The mosaic work of Florence consists in an assemblage of cut pieces chosen from gems, resembling as nearly as possible the colour of the object intended to be represented. For example, if it is a bird, the undulations or speckles of the breast feathers are imitated by means of a finely veined marble of a tint varying from chamois to brown, the neck or the wings borrow their red stains from carnelian or jasper; if fruits are to be copied, cherries for instance still use carnelian, being chosen in its transition state from bright red to white to represent its roundness and the effect, if necessary, can be heightened through the use of a red hot iron. It has been ascertained that certain stones change their tints when exposed to a high temperature, some assuming a deeper colour and others becoming paler. By skilfully making use of this knowledge, works may be enriched and brought nearer to nature.
A large cabinet in the Musée de Cluny, unfortunately disfigured by successive additions, exhibits the Florentine pietra dura work in its full development. Here we see landscapes with buildings, in another part birds and fruits, especially cherries; the luminous point is obtained by the discolouration of the carnelian through the use of a heated iron. Most of these subjects are framed in lapis and the cabinet itself is overlaid