asian art of thousands little pieces bamboo on flat black
background

---

Clarification of Question by floratrek-ga on 18 May 2004 18:34 PDT

a mosaic, not intarsia - looks like a rice paddy scene painting

Dunno if this helps but I saw many examples of this art in Southern
India, especially in Trivandrum. Tiny pieces of bamboo cut to resemble
nautical scenes (fishing villages, ships at sea) on a black silkish
background - sometimes round, sometimes rectangular.

This looks like the kind of art you're describing, but no particular
name is given to the technique:

http://www.rubylane.com/shops/yearsgoneby/item/0255

The name of this type of decoration usually depends upon where it's
made. An 18th- & 19th-century English version (perhaps the grandaddy
of them all) employed feathers, bits of paper and lace, and dried
flowers and was called "tat art." It was usually the creation of a
young lady to commemorate a friendship or special event. The most
interesting one I ever saw was made exclusively of carefully cut bits
of birds' eggs, their natural colors arranged to form the likenesses
of Victoria and Albert. This prompts me to suggest you check for a
source at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. They are
deffinitely the world's leading authority on obscure art forms.