ative specimen of the Flemish work of this period.

[Illustration: An Ebony Armoire, Richly Carved, Flemish Renaissance. (_In
South Kensington Museum._)]

The clever Flemish artist so thoroughly copied the models of his different
masters that it has become exceedingly difficult to speak positively as to
the identity of much of the woodwork, and to distinguish it from German,
English, or Italian, although as regards the latter we have seen that
walnut wood was employed very generally, whereas in Flanders, oak was
nearly always used for figure work.

After the period of the purer forms of the first Renaissance, the best
time for carved woodwork and decorative furniture in the Netherlands was
probably the seventeenth century, when the Flemish designers and craftsmen
had ceased to copy the Italian patterns, and had established the style we
recognise as "Flemish Renaissance."

Lucas Faydherbe, architect and sculptor (1617-1694)--whose boxwood group
of the death of John the Baptist is in the South Kensington Museum--both
the Verbruggens, and Albert Bruhl, who carved the choir work of St.
Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, are amongst the most celebrated Flemish wood
carvers of this time. Vriedman de Vriesse and Crispin de Passe, although
they worked in France, belong to Flanders and to the century. Some of the
most famous painters--Francis Hals, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Metsu, Van
Mieris--all belong to this time, and in some of the fine interiors
represented by these Old Masters, in which embroidered curtains and rich
coverings relieve the sombre colors of the dark carved oak furniture,
there is a richness of effect which the artist could scarcely have
imagined, but which he must have observed in the houses of the rich
burghers of prosperous Flanders.

[Illustration: A Barber's Shop. From a Wood Engraving by J. Amman. 16th
Century. Shewing a Chair of the time.]

In the chapter on Jacobean furniture, we shall see the influence and
assistance which England derived from Flemish woodworkers; and the
similarity of the treatment in both countries will be noticed in some of
the South Kensington Museum specimens of English marqueterie, made at the
end of the seventeenth century. The figure work in Holland has always been
of a high order, and though as the seventeenth century advanced, this
perhaps became less refined, the proportions have always been well
preserved, and the attitudes are free and unconstrained.

A very characteristic art