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Riesener's designs do not show much fertility, but his work is highly finished and elaborate. His method was generally to make the centre panel of a commode front, or the frieze of a table, a tour de force, the marqueterie picture being wonderfully delicate.
I have SUCH a rug for J-! a mosaic of skins as fine as marqueterie, done by Damara women, and really beautiful; and a sheep-skin blanket for you, the essence of warmth and softness. I shall sleep in mine, and dream of African hill- sides wrapt in a 'Veld combas'. The poor little water-tortoises have been killed by drought, and I can't get any, but I have the two of my own catching for M-.
There was nothing in the room which gave the slightest indication that the master of the library was any other than a private gentleman. Not a book, not a chair was out of its place. A purple inkstand of Sevre, and a highly-tooled morocco portfolio of the same colour, reposed on a marqueterie table, and that was all. No papers, no despatches, no red tape, and no red boxes.
But now the nuts are bursting out of the hole, and the squirrel wants to see what he's got. That brings me to my point!" He turned emphatically toward Faversham, leaning hard on a marqueterie table that stood between them: "I offer you, sir, the post, the double post, of agent to my property, and of private secretary, or assistant to myself.
The importation of scarce foreign woods in small quantities gave an impetus to this description of work, which in the marqueterie of Italy, France, Holland, Germany, and Spain, had already made great progress. Probably made in Yorkshire.
Under the green blinds was a glitter of jewels displayed among brocades and a tangle of old lace, or on embossed silver trays; and walking in at the door, out of the shadowy dusk, a blaze of colour leaped to the eyes. Not a soul was there, unless some one hid and spied behind a carved and gilded Tunisian bed or a marqueterie screen from Bagdad.
On the one hand, it had none of that affectation of superior taste evinced in marqueterie and gilding, or the more picturesque discomfort of high-backed chairs and mediaeval curiosities which prevails in the daintier abodes of fastidious bachelors; nor, on the other hand, had it the sporting character which individualizes the ruder juveniles qui gaudent equis, betrayed by engravings of racers and celebrated fox-hunts, relieved, perhaps, if the Nimrod condescend to a cross of the Lovelace, with portraits of figurantes, and ideals of French sentiment entitled, "Le Soir," or "La Reveillee," "L'Espoir," or "L'Abandon."
Here we see Arabesque ceilings, marqueterie woodwork, stucco panelling, and the elegant horse-shoe arches. There are beautiful specimens in the citadel, in Calle Pajaritos No. 15, in the Casa Prieto and elsewhere. The Moors possessed the city for five hundred years, during which time they entirely rebuilt it, using the Roman buildings as materials.
As a rule, the hero is smothered in bric-a-brac and palm-trees, lost in the gilded abyss of Louis Quatorze furniture, or reduced to a mere midge in the midst of marqueterie; whereas the background should always be kept as a background, and colour subordinated to effect. This, of course, can only be done when there is one single mind directing the whole production.
Amongst the latter was Monbro, a Frenchman, who established himself in Berners Street, London, and made furniture of an ornamental character in the style of his countrymen, reproducing the older designs of "Boule" and Marqueterie furniture. The present house of Mellier and Cie. are his successors, Mellier having been in his employ.
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