Dutch marquetry is the decorative veneering of furniture with elaborate pictorial designs, particularly flowers, birds, urns and scrolling foliage, executed in contrasting woods in the Netherlands from the seventeenth century onward. It is among the most recognisable forms of European marquetry, known for covering almost every surface of a piece.
Dutch and Flemish cabinet makers were highly influential in spreading floral marquetry across northern Europe in the later seventeenth century, and their work played a significant part in its introduction into England around the time of William and Mary. The tradition continued throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, with bombé commodes, display cabinets, bureaux, chairs and tables densely inlaid with tulips, roses and other blooms, often in walnut, satinwood, boxwood, fruitwoods and stained woods. Some ivory and mother of pearl was also used. A common feature of the market is that many plain eighteenth-century Dutch pieces were decorated with marquetry in the nineteenth century to suit fashionable taste, so careful examination of the veneer, wear and construction is needed to tell original from later work. Lifting veneers and losses are common, and skilled restoration is often required.
