Piqué Work

piqué work, decorative technique, usually employed on tortoiseshell, in which inlaid designs are created by means of small gold or silver pins. The art reached its highest point in 17th- and 18th-century France, particularly for the decoration of small tortoiseshell articles such as combs, patch boxes, and snuffboxes. By an adroit arrangement of the gold and silver pins, by placing them in small or large clusters, effects of light and shade could be created in the design. In the finest French work, the pins are placed so close to each other and with such accuracy that they appear to form a continuous line. Decorative motifs include chinoiserie scenes, geometric designs, and arabesques. In England, where the craft had been brought by the Huguenots at the end of the 17th century, Matthew Boulton in 1770 developed mechanical methods of producing piqué panels. Many of his designs show the influence of the Neoclassical designer Robert Adam. During the 19th century, piqué was widely employed for small tortoiseshell jewelry, much of it after 1872 being made by machine in Birmingham, Eng.