Intarsia, wooden paintings in wood

Intarsia is a technique known from antiquity and developed in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Intarsia is derived from the Italian word intarsio, meaning to tile. 

What is intarsia?

Intarsia is the decoration of wooden surfaces by creating an image in them using a different type of wood. Sometimes the decorative pieces of wood are flamed, stained or stained. Intarsia can be laid in two ways: 

• intarsia objects can be covered with smaller pieces of wood veneer,
• intarsia objects can be covered with saw-cut pieces of veneer sheet. 

Short history

Intarsia was very popular in Renaissance Italy and Germany, and it also developed strongly in the 17th century in the Netherlands and England. In Poland, intarsia was characteristic of Torun furniture. It was in Torun around 1730 that intarsia became the main decorative technique used in the production of bourgeois furniture. Torun products decorated with intarsia were characterized by a very high artistic level and were very popular.