wet weather; and that it is more easily
mended when broken. Miniature painting,
however, has been so much driven out of
fashion by photography, that we fancy
these marble substitutes for ivory tablets
have not had a very brilliant success.

Pictures are sometimes produced, not
by painting on marble, but by engraving
on it. A coating of aquatint varnish being
given to the prepared surface of a marble
slab, a design is sketched, the engraver's
needle removes the varnish from the lines
of the device, a strong acid solution is poured
on, and in a short time the marble is
corroded to a certain depth in all the parts
left bare of varnish. When the acid and
varnish are removed, and the marble
polished, the device appears in intaglio, or
sunken. If the graver be so managed as
to remove the varnish from the parts which
do not form the device, then the engraving
appears in relievo, or raised.

The name of neozographie has been given
to a mode of producing marble pictures,
which are both engraved and painted.
And a curious mode it is. A piece of
blackened paper being laid on the prepared
slab, the device is drawn on the paper with
a hard point, which transfers black lines
from the underside of the paper to the
marble. Fluid wax is applied to those
parts of the marble which are to be
protected, acid is poured on, and corrosion is
allowed to go on to a certain extent at all
the points not protected by the varnish.
Paint is applied to all the cavities by means
of camel-hair pencils in such selected tints
as suit the picture. The marble is then
abundantly coated with varnish, layer after
layer, with many intermediate polishings,
until the cavities are all filled up to the
general level. The surface is rubbed with
soft pads until the marble presents the
appearance of a coloured picture with a glossy,
glassy covering. By a little cunning, a
modicum of gold or silver may be thrown in
with the colours, here and there, to heighten
a specially intended effect.

Wooden pictures are not unknown in the
world of semi-art, that is, devices produced
by combining pieces of wood of various
patterns, colours, and convolutions of grain.
True, such devices are rarely pictures in
the usual meaning of that term; they are
more usually geometrical or scroll-work
designs, with which the eye and hand of
the artist have not had much to do. One
kind is called Buhl, or Boule work, from
the name of the German artist who first
introduced it. He was a cabinet-maker in
the days of Louis the Fourteenth, and was
instrumental in bringing into use a kind of
decorative furniture, or furniture decoration,
which has been more or less in favour
ever since. It was not usually, in his work,
actual wood that formed the surface; more
frequently it was brass, silver, or some
other metal inlaid in tortoise-shell, on a
wood backing. The mode of procedure
was curious. A layer, say, of brass, and a
layer of tortoise-shell, each as thin as veneer,
were glued on opposite surfaces of a piece
of paper; another piece of paper was glued
outside, a pattern or device was drawn on
the outside paper, and all the lines of the
device were cut through and through with
a fine saw. A little moistening removed
the papers, and separated the inlay. What
followed? Two patterns could be
produced out of the two veneers: a brass
inlay in tortoise-shell, and a tortoise-shell
inlay in brass. The inlays, thus fabricated,
were applied as veneers to the surface of a
cabinet or other article of furniture. Old
cabinets, thus adorned by Buhl and his
contemporaries, are now eagerly bought up
at high prices by art collectors.

Another cabinet-maker of the same
period, Beisner, varied the form of his
productions by employing two kinds of wood
instead of brass and tortoise-shell: usually
selecting tulip wood and some darker
variety. This was called Reisner work;
like real Buhl work, it now commands
high prices. It is evident that, the principle
once being clearly understood, its application
may be almost infinitely varied, according
to the choice of materials, whether
tortoise-shell, ivory, mother-of-pearl, ebony,
fancy woods, gold, silver, brass, copper, or
what not. Cheap imitations of Buhl work
are now produced by cutting out the veneer
patterns with a stamping press, instead of
by the slower aid of a saw. Other cheap
imitations are made in the papier-mache
workshops of Birmingham; fanciful
patterns in brass, stamped out, are fastened
down upon papier-mache, and the
interstices of the device gradually filled up with
successive coatings of black japan varnish.
As to the devices that may be cut out with a
fine saw, the fretwork of a pianoforte
furnishes a very good example; although it is
not often that the workman attempts
anything of a pictorial character therein. The
Egyptians are credited with the production
of a peculiar kind of inlaid picture. A device
is drawn on the smooth surface of a block
or tablet of some choice wood; the wood is
cut down, in the lines of the device, to a