Intarsia and Inlaid Wood-work.
landscapes on a small scale, shaded with all the delicacy and roundness attainable in a tinted drawing, and certainly show how near Intarsia can approach to painting. Their drawing is excellent and their execution marvellous; but at the same time one feels that, however one may admire them as a tour de force, the limitations of good sense and proper use of the material have been reached and overstepped. When the delicacy of the work is so great that it requires to be covered up or kept under glass, it obviously quits the province of decorative art; furniture is meant to be used, and when it is too precious to be usable on account of the over-delicate ornament bestowed upon it, it must be admitted that the ornament is out of place, and, therefore, bad art.
The later Italian Intarsia was betrayed into extravagance by the dexterity of the
