Marquetry
is a great and intricate art, which, has evolved over the years from the
ancient Egyptians to the present day. It is an art in which only a
talented few practice in it's original form. Kalman Radvanyi is the
premier artist in marquetry in the world today.
Three
thousand or so years ago, the Egyptians decorated almost all of their
woodwork with inlay. In fact, in the tomb of the great Egyptian Pharaoh
King Tutankhamon, the throne, chest, coffers, and nearly all the
furniture are literally covered with inlay, precious stones, miniature
glazed tiles, and little brickettes of wood, gold and ivory wonderfully
embellished items of special prestigious and ceremonial importance.
In the Orient -
in Persia, India, China and Japan - inlay workers created all sorts of
decorative delights, from complex wood parquetry designs set into floors
to wood mosaics on walls and furniture, to small inlay picture designs
on boxes, caskets, tombs and ceremonial regalia. All of them uniquely beautiful.
Through the centuries, in ancient Egypt, imperial Rome, Persia, 8th century Japan, and 16th century Italy and Germany, rich patrons employed inlay craftsmen to create beautiful works of art. The process was both expensive and painstaking because, traditionally, the craft involved many long steps: importing rare and exotic hardwoods; slowly carving, lowering, and trenching a groundwork; sawing and slicing the small amount of difficult-to-cut, expensive hardwood into 1/4-1/2-inch-thick tiles; fitting and setting the mosaic tiles into a bed of glue or mastic, one piece at a time; and then finally scraping, rubbing down, waxing, and burnishing the inlay surface.
Radvanyi
family methods successfully mixes the ancient methods of marquetry with
Kalman's own secret techniques, developed over five decades. The
Radvanyi's work exclusively with small hand-made knives, and as such,
the art works are a unique design and one-off production.
By the end of the nineteenth century, thin inlay veneer, or marquetry as it had now come to be called, was an extremely unique and refined form of art and furniture decoration. A Radvanyi is not just common marquetry - it is absolutely the most refined and perfected artform in the world today.