Marquetry is an art that has been practised for what seems almost like eons of time in Iran. Those artists and craftsmen have developed skills and visions which we can only describe as amazing.

One such marquetry artist is Hamid Mehrparvar, who's work we feature here.

Hamid's incredible work contains so much detail that you can easily get lost for an hour or two just studying one picture alone. To study and fully appreciate each picture properly would require several hours of quiet contemplation and deep concentration.

Okay then, let's now let Hamid himself describe some of his working methods - over to you Hamid:

"My style of work is begun by, firstly, cutting out the different species of wood I have chosen for the project I shall be working on in sizes of 5 to 10ml (mm) diagonally with a jigsaw, and then pressing with wood glue. Next comes the delicate inlay work.

These marquetry art pieces generally take between two to six months to complete; for example, the picture titled "Joseph" (seen lower down this page) took me six months to make, and I would say that it probably contains somewhere around one thousand pieces of wood and natural shell. All of the wood colours are natural, there is absolutely no artificial or dyed colouring in my work. I have probably used at least fifty to sixty varieties of wood species in my works"

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us Hamid.

And now, scroll down the page and prepare to be amazed at what you are going to see: