Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/354

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INTARSIA AND INLAID WOOD-WORK


ALTHOUGH decoration by inlaying woods of different colours must naturally have suggested itself in very early times, as soon indeed as there were workmen of skill sufficient for it, the history of this branch of art practically begins in the fifteenth century. It is eminently an Italian art, which according to Vasari had its origin in the days of Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello; and it had its birth in a land which has a greater variety of mild close-grained woods with a greater variety of colour

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