Types of Wood
There are a great number of different types of wood that can be found all over the world and all have unique characteristics. Some woods are very hard and some are more flexible (bendy). Most of the wood from Europe is cream, yellow or brown in colour.
Sycamore is a tree which is found across Europe. It was used in to make the cabinet above. The vase in the bottom picture was made with a sycamore burr which is highly valued. Both sycamore and holly were used in the making of the cabinet and both are hard types of wood.
The flowers on this cabinet are made from 3 different fruitwoods to provide a variety of colours for the flowers. They also look different because the grain of the wood is different from other woods used in making this cabinet.
These Francesco Abbiati marquetry panels use two different woods. Ebony is a dark wood from India and East Africa. It is very expensive. Walnut is the other type of wood, which is hard like ebony. The walnut had to be imported from Europe, so it was expensive to buy.