THE HOUSE
Three generations of marquetry
A family workshop on the Sorrento peninsula, where wood has been cut, inlaid and lacquered by hand since 1957.
The house begins with Giuseppe.
Before him there was trade. Orlando Ercolano, his father, sold marquetry made by other hands. Giuseppe was the first to make it: in 1957 he opened a workshop in Sorrento and began cutting the veneer himself. His son Orlando grew that single bench into a house. Today his grandson — who carries his name — keeps the same benches working. Three generations, one craft, one town.
THE YEARS
From one bench to a house
1957
Giuseppe Ercolano opens his workshop in Sorrento and becomes the first of the family to produce marquetry rather than trade it.
1960s
The first drilling machines arrive. They stand beside the benches rather than replacing them — the cutting, the inlaying and the polishing stay in the hands.
1997
The Artists collection is born: vivid artwork on hand-lacquered wood, made alongside the inlaid pieces rather than in place of them.
2018
The third generation joins the workshop, and the house takes its founder's name into a new century.
Today
Music boxes, jewellery cases, humidors and game boards leave Sorrento for collectors and retailers around the world.
THE FOUNDER
The first bench
Sorrento had made marquetry for a century before Giuseppe opened his door, but the family had only sold it. He learned the fretsaw, the dyes and the five coats of lacquer, and turned a trading name into a workshop. Everything the house makes today still begins the way he began it: a drawing, a stack of veneers, and a blade following a line.
TODAY
The same hands, the same town
The house has grown, and so has what leaves it. What has not changed is where the work happens and who does it: the same peninsula, the same benches, the same seven woods dyed in twelve colours. Machines prepare and finish; the marquetry itself is still cut, laid and polished by hand.