There may be an excess of finish in works of carving connected with cabinet-work; for if the finish is too delicate there is a lack of effect in the result. A piece of furniture is not a miniature work, which is to be investigated in every detail. It is an object of utility, which is to appear beautiful in a room, and is not to command undivided attention; it is a work which is to combine with other works in rendering an apartment beautiful. The South Kensington Museum purchased in the last Paris International Exhibition, at great cost, a cabinet from Fourdonois; but it is a very unsatisfactory specimen, as it is too delicate, too tender, and too fine for a work of utility—it is an example of what should be avoided rather than of what should be followed. The delicately carved and beautiful panels of the doors, if cut in marble and used as mere pieces of sculpture, would have been worthy of the highest commendation; but works of this kind wrought in a material that has a "grain," however little the grain may show, are absurd. Besides, the subjects are of too pictorial a character for "applied work"—that is, they are treated in too pictorial or naturalistic a manner. A broad, simple, idealised treatment of the figure is that which is alone legitimate in cabinet work.
Supports or columns carved into the form of human figures are always objectionable.
Besides carving, as a means of enrichment, we have inlaying, painting, and the applying of plaques of stone or earthenware, and of brass or ormolu enrichments, and we have the inserting of brass into the material when buhl-work is formed.
Inlaying is a very natural and beautiful means of enriching works of furniture, for it leaves the flatness of the surface undisturbed. A great deal may be done in this way by the employment of simple means. A mere row of circular dots of black wood inlaid in oak will often give a remarkably good effect; and the dots can be "worked" with the utmost ease. Three dots form a trefoil, four dots a quatrefoil, six dots a hexafoil, and so on, and desirable effects can often be produced by such simple inlays.
Panels of cabinets may be painted, and enriched with ornament or flatly-treated figure subjects. This is a beautiful mode of decoration very much neglected. The couch (Fig. 37) I intended for enrichment of this kind. If this form is employed, care should be exercised in order that the painted work be in all cases so situated that it cannot be rubbed. It should fill sunk panels and hollows and never appear on advancing members.
I am not fond of the application of plaques of stone or earthenware to works of furniture. Anything that is brittle is not suitable as an enrichment of wood-work, unless it can be so placed as to be out of danger.
Ormolu ornaments, when applied to cabinets and other works in wood, are also never satisfactory. They look too separate from the wood of which the work is formed—too obviously applied; and whatever is obviously applied to the work, and is not a portion of its general fabric, whether a mass of flowers even if carved in wood or an ormolu ornament, is not pleasant.
Buhl-work is often very clever in character and skilfully wrought, but I do not care for it. It is of too laborious a nature, and thus intrudes upon us the sense of labour as well as that of skill. As a means of enrichment, I approve of carving, sparingly used, of inlays, and of painted ornament in certain cases; and by the just employment of these means the utmost beauty in cabinet-work can be achieved. Ebony inlaid with ivory is very beautiful.
In order to illustrate my remarks respecting cabinets, sideboards, and similar pieces of furniture, I give an engraving of a sideboard executed by Mr. Crace, from the design of Mr. A. Welby Pugin (the father), to which I have before alluded (Fig. 41), and a painted cabinet by Mr. Burgess (Fig. 42), the well-known Gothic architect, whose architecture must be admired. Both of these works are worthy of study of a very careful kind.