d in the furniture room at South Kensington there are
several chests and other pieces of furniture which have the incised
design filled in with a mixture of whiting, glue, and linseed oil.

[Illustration: Plate 55.--_Panel from S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia._

_To face page 130._]

At Hardwick some of the door panels are painted with arabesques in
Indian ink, and varnished (a process also employed on several pieces of
furniture in the South Kensington collection), and even in certain
cases, no doubt under the direction of Bess of Hardwick, engravings have
been stuck on the panels, tinted, surrounded with similar painting, and
then similarly varnished over. The sacristy cupboards at S. Maria delle
Grazie, Milan, called "Lo Scaffale," show paintings of no less an artist
than Luini, the ornamental part of which is intended to simulate tarsia.

For small objects, such as trinket boxes, a marquetry of straw tinted to
different colours was sometimes employed, which, though not very
lasting, in the hands of a worker who possessed taste in colour
sometimes produced pleasing results, a form of work practised both in
Holland and England, and lasting well into the 19th century. The writer
possesses one or two objects decorated by this process which were bought
from the French prisoners taken in the Peninsular War, who provided
themselves with little luxuries by making and selling them. In all these
imitative processes the question of design becomes of the very highest
importance, since the material has neither beauty nor intrinsic value in
itself; and here, even more than in many other forms of manufacture, the
presence and influence of the intelligent designer is most desirable,
and should be paramount.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] In 1453 Matteo di Giovanni Bartoli, painter, says that he possesses
the half of certain tools and appliances of his art, which are not worth
20 florins, and that the other half belongs to Giovanni di Pietro,
painter, his partner. That they are in a house or dwelling that they
hire from Guicciardo Forteguerri in the Palazzo Forteguerri, which they
have as a house and not a shop, and that he has nothing else in the
world but a few debts (!). He says that he makes no profit, but is
learning as well as he can, and that his uncle, Ser Francescho di
Bartolo, the notary, keeps him. This is a young and promising artist who
cannot get on. Priamo della Quercia, brother of the celebrated sculptor
Jacopo della Fonte,