s ingenuity, skill, and taste developed by the art of inlaid
work, or Mosaic in wood. It would be impossible to exceed the results
achieved by the Persian artizans, especially those of Shiraz, in this
wonderful and difficult art.... Chairs, tables, sofas, boxes, violins,
guitars, canes, picture frames, almost every conceivable object, in fact,
which is made of wood, may be found overlaid with an exquisite casing of
inlaid work, so minute sometimes that thirty-live or forty pieces may be
counted in the space of a square eighth of an inch. I have counted four
hundred and twenty-eight distinct pieces on a square inch of a violin,
which is completely covered by this exquisite detail of geometric
designs, in Mosaic."

Mr. Benjamin--who, it will be noticed, is somewhat too enthusiastic over
this kind of mechanical decoration--also observes that, while the details
will stand the test of a magnifying glass, there is a general breadth in
the design which renders it harmonious and pleasing if looked at from a
distance.

In the South Kensington Museum there are several specimens of Persian
lacquer work, which have very much the appearance of papier mache articles
that used to be so common in England some forty years ago, save that the
decoration is, of course, of Eastern character.

Of seventeenth century work, there is also a fine coffer, richly inlaid
with ivory, of the best description of Persian design and workmanship of
this period, which was about the zenith of Persian Art during the reign of
Shah Abbas. The numerous small articles of what is termed Persian
marqueterie, are inlaid with tin wire and stained ivory, on a ground of
cedar wood, very similar to the same kind of ornamental work already
described in the Indian section of this chapter. These were purchased at
the Paris Exhibition in 1867.

Persian Art of the present day may be said to be in a state of transition,
owing to the introduction and assimilation of European ideas.

Saracenic Woodwork From Cairo and Damascus.

While the changes of fashion in Western, as contrasted with Eastern
countries, are comparatively rapid, the record of two or three centuries
presenting a history of great and well-defined alterations in manners,
customs, and therefore, of furniture, the more conservative Oriental has
been content to reproduce, from generation to generation, the traditions
of his forefathers; and we find that, from the time of the Moorish
conquest and spread