I came across in an antique shop a partly-used 1950’s or so marquetry kit for creating a quite charming image of a village street and houses entitled ‘Sleepy Cornwall’. I decided to fork out £5 to buy it and complete what someone had started – perhaps it was a child’s Christmas or birthday gift and they lost interest along the way…
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the half-finished picture before commencing its completion.
The arrowed areas in the image opposite indicate the main part that had been started – the top half and sides. I had to complete the rest from my own collection of veneers – mostly relating to the windows, all the roadway and paths and the white building in the distance.
The original user had made an error in cutting the area between the sky and the right hand building so that it looks as if there is a drainpipe attached to the roof. This was too challenging to correct to I left that as it was.
The picture had been mounted on a board leaving a surround that is normally completed with a dark veneer. I decided to leave this and having applied several coats of varnish had the board set in a picture frame as shown on the right.
The Guide and Assembly Instructions
The kit came with a line drawing showing by way of letters which types of veneer were to be used for the various parts of the design, although all the original veneers were not available for me. Beginning to end guidance was provided for its construction plus helpful ‘aids to good marquetry’ – images of all these are shown below.
The recommended handicraft tools were made by Swann-Morton – a company founded in 1932 and one now specialising in the manufacture of surgical blades and scalpels with a world-wide export business.
How odd! I too bought a part finished ‘Sleepy Cornwall’ plus one other on Ebay. There were enough errors to guess that the original owner gave up and I spent an evening with a hot air gun removing some of the veneers.
Happily I too have a box of veneers from previous work, and finding the colours to match from the photo on the box was difficult – hence the google search that brought me to this page. Wonderful! Your photos are a great help to me.
I had to remove the ‘framing’ veneers and the cuts are all wrong to try and use the bits at the end. Luckily I have some large sections of reddish-brown that I can use to finish the work.
What a coincidence! I did not think of removing the veneers that were in place – there were insufficient of the original veneers anyhow. Good to find a fellow marquetry enthusiast – a hobby from my childhood and picked up 70 or so years later! I’m currently making one of my wife’s mother’s house in Austria. Will post it when finished.
Working away steadily and slowly. Just found the anomaly on the original drawing. The door surround on the right hand building doesn’t work as drawn. The panel to the right of the door has zero thickness as drawn. The detail of the step at the bottom needs changing to make that panel part of the building wall. That then gives a problem on the other side of the door! Still, that’s why we do it eh?!
I’ve been sorting veneers to make sure I get enough to finish in ‘sections’ – quite a puzzle compared to a new kit complete.
I know I have left masking tape on the back of the tiny window panes – an error you’ve pointed out elsewhere. I’ve got away with doing this before and I think the fact that the pieces are also glued round the edges will keep them in place -as they are so small. Time will tell!
You seem to have been more thorough in your analysis of the original drawing. I’m impressed. It will be good to see the completed picture.
It’s finished! My stock of spare veneer bits is seriously depleted. Probably the hardest I’ve done – lots of tiny pieces and couldn’t sensibly use the ‘window’ method with lots of veneers already stuck on the board.