Wood Veneer Art: What Marquetry Is, Its History and Modern Techniques

What is wood veneer art?

Wood veneer art is a picture or pattern made from thin sheets of real wood. Each sheet, a veneer, is usually well under a millimeter thick. Pieces of different species are cut to shape and fitted edge to edge, so the image comes from the natural color and grain of the wood rather than paint.

The craft has several names that are often mixed up. Marquetry builds a picture from veneer pieces fitted together and glued to a backing. Inlay sets material into a recess cut into a solid surface. Intarsia is the Renaissance Italian word for wood pictures, today also used for thicker, shaped pieces. Parquetry uses geometric shapes, as in patterned floors.

A short history

Veneering is ancient. Furniture from Egyptian tombs, including Tutankhamun's, shows thin layers of fine wood and decorative inlay laid over plainer timber.

In Renaissance Italy, intarsia reached its peak in church choir stalls and private studies, where whole walls of wood pictures created cupboards, books and city views in false perspective. In 17th-century France, André-Charles Boulle made marquetry famous on royal furniture, and the 18th century filled European homes with floral and pictorial marquetry.

In the 19th century, machines that slice and peel logs made veneer cheaper and more widely available. Today marquetry lives on in fine furniture and, more and more, as wall art in its own right.

How a piece is made by hand

Every piece in my gallery is made the traditional way, without stain or print:

• Drawing. The image is drawn and broken into the shapes that will each become one piece of wood.
• Choosing veneers. Species are chosen for tone and grain: a curl of grain can become a strand of hair, a darker figure a shadow.
• Cutting. Each fragment is cut by hand to match its neighbors. Portraits can take hundreds of pieces.
• Fitting and gluing. The pieces are assembled into one sheet, glued to a stable backing and pressed flat.
• Finishing. The surface is sanded and finished to bring out the wood's own color and depth.

You can watch the process in the studio films.

Modern techniques and trends

Today's makers mix old and new. Designs are often drawn or refined digitally, and some studios cut veneer with lasers for very fine detail. Traditional techniques remain: sand shading, scorching the edge of a piece in hot sand to create a soft shadow, is centuries old and still widely used.

Subjects have widened too. Alongside classic florals and landscapes you now see photo-real portraits, optical-illusion abstracts, calligraphy and geometric pieces made to hang on a wall rather than sit on furniture. My own work moves between portraits, abstract pieces and Bismillah calligraphy.

Caring for wood veneer art

• Hang it out of strong direct sunlight. Like all wood, veneer slowly changes color under UV light.
• Avoid big swings in humidity and heat, such as directly above a radiator.
• Dust with a soft, dry cloth. Skip sprays and polishes.