Flowers from Holland: Antique Dutch furniture with later added marquetry from the late 19th and early 20th century

In the furniture trade of the Netherlands in the second half of 19th and early 20th century it became fashionable to decorate antique Dutch furniture with new marquetry inlays (fig. 1a-d). To quote furniture historian Christopher Payne: “The period from 1880 to 1900 is that in which a vast number of good plain Dutch pieces of the period 1690-1760 were inlaid. Even plain Empire and Biedermeier pieces were not exempt from the expressive marqueteurs. […] The great revival for marquetry which seemed to dominate Holland at the end of the nineteenth century was a nostalgic revival that many European countries developed at the same time. In Holland there was a revival of all things Dutch and in a logical joining together of ideas the best features of earlier Dutch furniture were amalgamated into a style that is commonly seen in shops and salerooms throughout the furniture world. Vast quantities were exported to America, England and other European countries.” Although they are nowadays recognised by experts for what they really are; antique pieces of furniture that were embellished and adapted at a later date, more often than not they will be labelled with the comfortably ambiguous term a “Dutch marquetry piece”.3Whether intentionally done or not, by evading the issue of authenticity this hardly promotes the study of Dutch furniture. The following will attempt to describe what sets apart these secondary marquetry inlays and how one can distinguish them from original 17th and 18th century work