ON traveling to the Adriatic coast some years ago, I stopped for several days in a little Italian town not far from Ancona. I suppose few visitors have ever alighted there; at least that is the impression I got from the profuse welcome accorded me at the primitive albergo where I put up. Just why even the slow-creeping trains of the Marche ever bothered to stop here at all I have yet to determine. With myself I seem to have established a precedent. No errand other than that of the spirit took me there. It all happened because, when journeying eastward, I had asked a fellow-traveler what there was of interest in this town, and, then, why the train made so short a stop.

“No one ever gets out here,” he explained; “there is nothing to see.”

From that moment my curiosity was aroused, for experience has taught me that the most interesting places are those which most people find uninteresting.

One of the things I found in this little town will, perhaps, dear reader, interest you, and so I will make mention of it as introduction to my subject. The room to which I was assigned by my host of the inn was, I have reason to believe, the chambre de luxe of the country-side. The high beamed ceiling was painted much after the manner of the great ceiling of the Florentine church of San Miniato al Monte, although I saw nothing of it all by the flickering candle which lighted my arrival at this medieval hostelry. In the morning a burst of golden sunlight awakened me, and in through the windows was wafted the fragrance of the grape flowers in blossom outside. My sleepy eyes followed the walls around. And then opened wide on beholding a quaintly framed canvas of beautiful freshness, the picture of a group of saints.

Jumping out of bed and going over to inspect the painting, I observed on an old marqueterie secrÉtaire which stood just below it an array of curious, golden-hued objects. On closer examination I found some to be boxes, some jewel-caskets, others yarn-containers, while needle-cases, frames, book-covers and the like completed this odd assemblage of curious antiques. Then I discovered that they were all examples of straw marqueterie, but finer, of them, than any pieces of the sort that ever before had happened to come to my attention.

I suppose being a collector makes one a discoverer. At any rate, a discovery it was, and I asked myself how on earth these things happened to be here. That morning my host explained.

“All these,” said he, “I have been collecting as a hobby for years—things made by prisoners of war, interesting and worth preserving. The inlaid straw objects are but part of what I have—ivories, carved cocoanuts; jewelry, paper models, embroideries, and so on, all made by prisoners of war, mostly in Italy, I presume, as I have picked them up here in my own country in traveling around. I would not part with them for the world!”

This declaration dashed my hopes to the ground, but one can forgive much in a landlord who collects things more spiritual than rent, and a landlord in Italy who “travels around” also commands one’s respect for his ability to be so independent. That is why I listened instead of bargaining, and in that morning I learned many interesting facts about my host’s unusual collection. Perhaps there were few kindred collecting souls in the neighborhood who deigned to listen as sympathetically as I did or who made no effect to conceal an enthusiasm which these things awakened within me. At any rate, the amiable innkeeper who would not part with his treasures for the world proved finally willing to sell a few of them for considerably less than a hemisphere, which gave me a chance to weave tales of my own in the years that were to follow.

Dr. John Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., a renowned English antiquarian, had a collection of some eighty pieces of straw marqueterie, a collection exceeded in extent at that time by two French collection only. Probably not over a hundred pieces of straw marqueterie are to be found in all the British museums combined. Dr. Hodgkin’s interesting volumes under the title of “Rariora” are, unfortunately, out of print. In one of these he reproduced some of the specimens of straw marqueterie in his own extensive collection, and the reader who wishes further to interest himself in the subject is referred to the pages of those erudite tomes, which he may be fortunate enough to find on the shelves of some of the more important art libraries in America.

In Europe the earlier centuries brought into existence many small arts of which we have well nigh forgotten the very existence. It was thus these straw marqueterie objects of the sixteenth century, the seventeenth and the eighteenth, objects whose form of decoration is so rare as to be almost unknown to dealers in antiques and curios. Indeed, I have failed to find a single specimen of early straw marqueterie in any shop in America, or to discover any dealer who really knew anything about it.

This decoration, composed of filaments of colored wheaten or oaten straw applied to small cabinets, pictorial panels, mirror frames, caskets, bookbindings, Étuis, bonbonniÈres, plaques, etc., boasts of an early origin. Possibly it was known in the fifteenth century, but I have not found any examples that can with reasonable precision be attributed to a period earlier than the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In certain instances the straw filaments composing the mosaics or marqueterie covering of the objects was highly colored originally, but time has softened and toned them down. The finest specimens of this work resemble chiseled gold, and nearly all examples of straw marqueterie show a play of light on the grain of the fabric that produces the most exquisite effects imaginable, which one must see really to appreciate.

Very crude modern Japanese trays, boxes, etc., are technically akin to this old marqueterie, but are not worthy to be classed with it or placed near these rare old European specimens. Indeed, the Oriental artist-craftsmen have never appeared to grasp a full realization of the resources of straw as a material for producing the exquisite effects to which the earlier European workers attained, except in a few instances. This seems strange, considering the ingenuity of Oriental craftsman. The European artist-craftsman appears to have developed the art independently of Oriental suggestion, or at least independently of Oriental influence.

In all probability straw marqueterie started in a humble way with the peasantry. The materials for working it out lay at hand without cost, infinite patience being all that was required, with skill and inherent taste and a sense of design, which peasant art invariably exhibits. Probably the early Italians were the first makers of objects in straw marqueterie and the French were probably the next ones to take it up, borrowing the art from the Italians.

As no straw-work of this sort is being made in Europe to-day, one can but venture to guess at the details of the process. Such old volumes as Barrow’s “Dictionarium Polygraphicum,” and the “Handmaid of the Arts,” in which one might reasonably look for some hint on the subject, are strangely neglectful of the matter, which leads to the conclusion that though straw marqueterie was at one time one of the flourishing small arts on the Continent, it was less generally known in England. In fact, nearly all the English work of the sort dates from the eighteenth century.

In the Victoria and Albert Museum is an ingeniously constructed work-box of pine, decorated on the outside and the inside with colored straw-work arranged in panels containing checkers, diagonal lines, and other devices. The front is fitted with a revolving shutter, behind which is a panel ornamented in the center with buildings and fitted below with a small drawer. Below the shutter is a larger drawer, divided into four lidded compartments, two of the lids being of glass; under this drawer is another small drawer. At the top of the box is a lid fitted inside with a mirror and covering two compartments with hinged lids. The word “HOPE” appears on both the front and the back of the box. There are four turned bone handles and a lozenge-shaped lock-plate of the same material.

In the author’s collection is a cabinet of straw marqueterie, measuring 8½ inches in height, 9 inches in breadth, and 4¾ inches in depth. There is one wide, deep drawer at the bottom, above which six narrower, shallower drawers are placed in two sections of three each. From the shape of the handles, the proportion of the cabinet, the quality of the black lacquer inside finish of the drawers, and the design of the panel across the bottom, one is led to conclude that this is an uncommon example of Japanese workmanship.

A number of small boxes with figure subjects, all carefully and wonderfully worked out in filaments of colored straw, are extant to attest to the durability of straw marqueterie, which is not nearly so fragile as its name suggests it to be. Some of these were executed by French prisoners of war as Norman Cross in 1810.

From times immemorial, I suppose, war prisoners who have not been enslaved by their captors but have been treated without barbarity have sought to enlighten their tedium by various sorts of handicraft, exerting to the utmost their ingenuity in the matter of tools and materials. To-day the subject is one of immediate interest to us. Already have art objects made by prisoners of war interned in Holland and in Switzerland reached us. In time they will come to be as treasured as the antiques made by the prisoners of war of the Napoleonic period and of earlier times. To catalogue the variety of such things would require page after page. Naturally, nearly all such objects are “handy” in size and one does not look for particularly large specimens of war prisoners’ art work. One begins to realize, after visiting the convalescents’ ward of a military hospital, what a blessing to the soldier some knowledge of an art handicraft may be. I have seen several marvelous things whittled out of wood by prisoners of war—bone carvings, beadwork, jewelry—that indicate the godsend the work must be to the soldier prisoner detained in the enemy’s camp. But of all these objects I know of none that are more beautiful than those of straw marqueterie.

I do not know where the art originated. Mr. Hodgkin confessed to a like hiatus in his knowledge of the subject. However, I have no doubt that artistic straw inlaying was practised in the Orient at a very early date. Thence it may have been brought into Europe. I feel sure that it was known and practised during the period of the Renaissance in Italy, and I consider the old Italian examples of this craft to be the earliest European ones.

This early Italian straw marqueterie is distinguished by its golden hues, suggesting the richness of Venetian paintings. The objects to be covered by the artist in straw were of various materials, such as wood, paper, papier-machÉ, cloth, and occasionally glass, metal, or bone. The design, pattern, or picture was worked out by pasting filaments and little sections of straw (stained to various colors) on the surfaces of the objects to be covered, which were then varnished. The minuteness of some of this straw-work is extraordinary. It would seem to have necessitated the use of a glass of high magnifying power as well as to have required almost super-human patience and ingenuity to put it together. Moreover, these early pieces in straw marqueterie were so faithfully fabricated that they have come down to us in excellent condition.

I imagine the French learned the art of straw marqueterie from their Italian cousins. I feel sure that the Spanish craftsmen did. At any rate, French prisoners of war have shown themselves wonderfully proficient in this art in the past. The French prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars who were quartered in England were prolific in their output of this sort. Numerous tea-caddies have I seen from their hands, here and there preserved in the cottages of the country round about Peterborough. At near-by Norman Cross was one of the chief camps of the Napoleonic prisoners of war. We are told that a regular market for the art wares made by French prisoners at Norman Cross was held daily in the camp. Perth was another prisoner-of-war concentration center and contemporary writers tell us that the objects made by the French prisoners there were of a finer design and quality than like things produced by the English townsmen, in consequence of which there was brisk market rivalry. At Dartmoor, Stapleton, Liverpool, and Greenland Valleyfield the French war prisoners exhibited their skill. At the Liverpool prison they constructed little straw marqueterie cases to contain miniature ships and like articles.

What stories the objects of straw marqueterie made by prisoners of war could tell could they but speak! What silent testimonies of grit, patience, and fortitude! But perhaps we may be glad that we do not know all they might tell, for to-day has sorrow enough and we should be grateful that time has been kind enough to leave us just the beauty and not the life details of these objects from the hands of those who suffered in the yesterdays of other wars.