...For the basis of a piece of furniture (that is to say the framework), continues to be given panels joined with mortise and tenon, tongue and groove, false-tenon, and dovetail – or swallowtail because of its resemblance to the tail of a swallow – with dovetailing dating from the XVIth Century, being the most common form used in the fabrication of drawers...
In terms of the stages needed the procedure remains unchanged, both for the production of solid wood furniture and for furniture including marquetry. For the best pieces at least fourteen different stages are required, and many different experts, before a piece of furniture of the highest standard appears.
Bronzes originally served a useful purpose: they protected furniture edges and keyholes, or were fixed to provide knobs or handles to manipulate the pieces... The basic element of a bronze, the master pattern, is chosen and then given to the foundry man who produces a rough casting containing certain defects: metal seams, beads, particles… This is then handed to the trimmer whose job it is to file off the rough edges and openings scrupulously using both a sharp-edged and a rounded file. The piece is then pickled in a bath of nitric acid to give the metal the familiar yellow tint of bronze. Then comes the more personal participation of the engraver or chaser. With his fine tools which are the tracing-awl, the “ognette”, the “perloir”, and the chasing tool, the chaser defines all the lines by furrowing as in handwriting with its up-strokes and its down-strokes. Then to give greater depth and expression to the object he uses tools which allow him to produce mat surfaces (point mat and cross-hatching). The operation consists of a light hammering which amounts to a whittling down of the shape which in some cases results in the lifting of a leaf of metal with the chisel thus accentuating the relief...
It was the Florentine Benedetto da Maiano, called “Vasari”, who was the precursor of marquetry in the XVth Century. He invented and refined the technique of “intarsia incrusta” consisting of hollowing out cavities in solid wood furniture and filling them with pieces of other woods. Marquetry in France was developed somewhat later, in the XVIIth Century, by André-Charles Boulle who used wood, tortoise-shell, copper, pewter, and mother of pearl, but it is without doubt the Louis XV style of the following generation which was to be the most innovative in this genre. This period, particularly inspired, devoted itself to both original forms and shapes and to new procedures: undulating veneers, variegated backgrounds, complex marquetry, and the “vernis martin” which replaced Japanese lacquer. Exotic woods were imported which allowed one to make up marquetry with a palette of colours whose richness up till then had been impossible to achieve, and which produced true pictures...