Jumping out of bed and going over to inspect the painting, I observed on an old marqueterie secrétaire which stood just below it an array of curious, golden-hued objects. On closer examination I found some to be boxes, some jewel-caskets, others yarn-containers, while needle-cases, frames, book-covers and the like completed this odd assemblage of curious antiques. Then I discovered that they were all examples of straw marqueterie, but finer, of them, than any pieces of the sort that ever before had happened to come to my attention.
I suppose being a collector makes one a discoverer. At any rate, a discovery it was, and I asked myself how on earth these things happened to be here. That morning my host explained.
“All these,” said he, “I have been collecting as a hobby for years—things made by prisoners of war, interesting and worth preserving. The inlaid straw objects are but part of what I have—ivories, carved cocoanuts; jewelry, paper models, embroideries, and so on, all made by prisoners of war, mostly in Italy, I presume, as I have picked them up here in my own country in traveling around. I would not part with them for the world!”
This declaration dashed my hopes to the ground, but one can forgive much in a landlord who collects things more spiritual than rent, and a landlord in Italy who “travels around” also commands one’s respect for his ability to be so independent. That is why I listened instead of bargaining, and in that morning I learned many interesting facts about my host’s unusual collection. Perhaps there were few kindred collecting souls in the neighborhood who deigned to listen as sympathetically as I did or who made no effect to conceal an enthusiasm which these things awakened within me. At any rate, the amiable innkeeper who would not part with his treasures for the world proved finally willing to sell a few of them for considerably less than a hemisphere, which gave me a chance to weave tales of my own in the years that were to follow.
Dr. John Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., a renowned English antiquarian, had a collection of some eighty pieces of straw marqueterie, a collection exceeded in extent at that time by two French collection only. Probably not over a hundred pieces of straw marqueterie are to be found in all the British museums combined. Dr. Hodgkin’s interesting volumes under the title of “Rariora” are, unfortunately, out of print. In one of these he reproduced some of the specimens of straw marqueterie in his own extensive collection, and the reader who wishes further to interest himself in the subject is referred to the pages of those erudite tomes, which he may be fortunate enough to find on the shelves of some of the more important art libraries in America.
In Europe the earlier centuries brought into existence many small arts of which we have well nigh forgotten the very existence. It was thus these straw marqueterie objects of the sixteenth century, the seventeenth and the eighteenth, objects whose form of decoration is so rare as to be almost unknown to dealers in antiques and curios. Indeed, I have failed to find a single specimen of early straw marqueterie in any shop in America, or to discover any dealer who really knew anything about it.
This decoration, composed of filaments of colored wheaten or oaten straw applied to small cabinets, pictorial panels, mirror frames, caskets, bookbindings, étuis, bonbonnières, plaques, etc., boasts of an early origin. Possibly it was known in the fifteenth century, but I have not found any examples that can with reasonable precision be attributed to a period earlier than the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In certain instances the straw filaments composing the mosaics or marqueterie covering of the objects was highly colored originally, but time has softened and toned them down. The finest specimens of this work resemble chiseled gold, and nearly all examples of straw marqueterie show a play of light on the grain of the fabric that produces the most exquisite effects imaginable, which one must see really to appreciate.
Very crude modern Japanese trays, boxes, etc., are technically akin to this old marqueterie, but are not worthy to be classed with it or placed near these rare old European specimens. Indeed, the Oriental artist-craftsmen have never appeared to grasp a full realization of the resources of straw as a material for producing the exquisite effects to which the earlier European workers attained, except in a few instances. This seems strange, considering the ingenuity of Oriental craftsman. The European artist-craftsman appears to have developed the art independently of Oriental suggestion, or at least independently of Oriental influence.
In all probability straw marqueterie started in a humble way with the peasantry. The materials for working it out lay at hand without cost, infinite patience being all that was required, with skill and inherent taste and a sense of design, which peasant art invariably exhibits. Probably the early Italians were the first makers of objects in straw marqueterie and the French were probably the next ones to take it up, borrowing the art from the Italians.
As no straw-work of this sort is being made in Europe to-day, one can but venture to guess at the details of the process. Such old volumes as Barrow’s “Dictionarium Polygraphicum,” and the “Handmaid of the Arts,” in which one might reasonably look for some hint on the subject, are strangely neglectful of the matter, which leads to the conclusion that though straw marqueterie was at one time one of the flourishing small arts on the Continent, it was less generally known in England. In fact, nearly all the English work of the sort dates from the eighteenth century.