Copyright (c) 2012 Mathew Jenkins
INLAY OF WOODS, AND OF COMPRESSED SHAVINGS-PARQUETRY OF FLOORS
Inlaying, or the laying of small pieces of wood in hollows cut out of the surface of another wood, is an alternative to carved enrichment, but during the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth century was used chiefly in connection with carving.
Saw-cut slices of contrasting woods, such as holly or poplar (for light tones) and bog oak (for dark), with an occasional insertion of a reddish coloured wood, such as­cherry, form the ornament. In the inlaid chamber,' formerly on the second floor of the Peel Tower, Sizergh Castle, poplar and bog oak are used for the enrichment of the wainscot, which is divided horizontally into dado (consisting of one large composite panel), a paneled arcading. This arcading is divided by pilasters into bays, within which the long panels are inlaid with bold foliated arabesques in poplar wood, in the centre of some of which strips of inlay form an interlaced lozenge,2 while the links in the scroll work and details are in bog oak. In the panels of the surface, strips of inlay forming geometrical or arabesque patterns are used.
The broadly designed arabesques of the inlaid panels in the arcading of the Sizergh paneling have no close parallel, though the two upper tiers of panels in the drawing room at Gawthorpe are enriched with a conventional inlay, and the frieze and uppermost tier of arcaded panels in the dining-room at Sydenham House, Devonshire, are also inlaid with arabesques. In the Smithson drawings in the Coke Collection is a sketch for a screen, in which certain panels are designed for inlay?
A favourite subject for inlay was the elevation of a fantastic building, such as in the chimney-piece, dated 1594, illustrated in Ancient Woodwork and Ironwork in Cambridge, in which the panels are inlaid with coloured woods to represent a temple or pavilion with domes or cupolas, in the front of which is a lake. Inlay also takes the form of interlacing linear forms; or of flowers, as in the great chamber, Gilling, or the chimney-piece at Levens, where each panel is inlaid with varied geometrical patterns in narrow lines of bog oak and light wood within the elongated diamond centre panel. The four corners are also inlaid with flowers in the same woods. Some rare examples of an inlay of compressed shavings are found in the eastern counties. The frieze and fascia of the chimney-piece formerly at Lambourn Hall, Essex, which is dated 1571, is enriched with bandings of shavings compressed with glue. The frieze of the panelled ground floor room at the Old House, Sandwich, is inlaid with oblongs of this same material, of which the columns of the upper stage of the chimney-piece are made. In the centre of the two panels are framed small figure subjects, inlaid upon a light ground, Samson wielding the jawbone of an ass, and stooping under the gates of Gaza
Parqueting for flooring was used, according to Aubrey, in Sir John Danvers's house at Chelsea, of which the drawing-room floor was " checquered like a chesse board of Box and Ewgh panels of about six inches square."
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