Eguisheim

This Spindler Marquetry art work shows a scene at the beautiful little French town of Eguisheim. Isn’t it amazing to see how well the Marquetry copies a photo of this scene.

Most towns in the Alsace have a row of houses that make up the town wall, but Eguisheim is encircled by a second row of houses, just across a narrow street from the outer wall. This photo shows the scene of the artwork we have at home, a realistic, lifelike, almost-photographic masterpiece created by John Spindler — without the beautiful lady of course.

For nearly a century the Spindler family, John, his father and grandfather, have been creating marquetry artwork in their studio (built as an Abby, a thousand years ago) in Saint Léonard, about 30 miles from Eguisheim. The picture is made entirely of small pieces of wood veneer, an art called marquetry.

Two times we have had our RV broken into in Europe, both times we were carefully parked in what appeared to be a safe place, in what is reputed to be a very nice part of Europe. The first time was in 1989 in the church yard at the tiny town of Eguisheim, a few blocks from where this photo was taken. The door lock was broken, a few traveler’s checks, photographs, and an old briefcase were stolen. American Express in Luxembourg enthusiastically replaced the checks; we still had the negatives; the briefcase was old; and the door lock was easily repaired.