Chess Board Illustion

The place where my Woodworking guild meets (Denver Rockler store) has in the downstairs meeting room a workbench that has the back (facing the audience) a marquetry piece. If you look at it, it appears to be arched cabinet doors with raised panels. You need to get up and feel it to realize it is completely flat, all the 3d appearance is expertly done Marquetry by Rich Gady. Like you, he is a master. I have always been fascinated by the art.

This work is great beyond my aspirations.
I first saw this type of art when I happened to visit the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have a study that was taken from a ducal palace in Italy - belonged to a 15th Century mercenary general who became a duke, and was also a man of science and letters.

It can be seen on the website (Google studiolo Gubbio), but the experience in the flesh is unbeatable. It is a difficult room to capture photographically, as it is quite small, and darkish.
It did not work when the curators first assembled it in the Museum, so somebody went to study its original locale in Italy. Turns out the artist had designed it for the very particular lighting that came through a smallish window, orientated in a particular way towards the sun, and facing a stone wall. When they rebuilt the installation and lit it in that way in the Museum, the 3-D results are spectacular. One stands in front of a flat panel, but keeps trying to get inside latticed cabinet doors, or tries to touch ledges and shelves. There is a dramatically realistic dentil moulding, which would only look 3-D with the light coming in at the angle it does, and the pattern changes subtly around the walls, to match the change in incident angle of the light.
In reality, the only 3-D is the coffered ceiling, and some raised gilt lettering - and even the latter is enhanced by tromp l'oiel.

Apparently it took a whole workshop of craftsmen years to make the piece. They used shoulder chisels to do the inlay - so called because of a long handle, which rested on the craftsman's shoulder, allowing the guiding hand to exert significant downwards pressure on the edge of the blade, while maintaining fine control. Technically, the technique is called intarsia - I am ignorant as to whether Scott's technique goes by the same name

I imagine that there are members here who would prefer to go to war, rather than go to NYC, but if you happen to be there and you have not seen the studiolo, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

@Gaffboat,
Oliver, the amazing thing is that every detail is an optical illusion - the perspectives were worked out perfectly, at a time when perspective had not been around that long (remember the old Byzantine paintings, where saints appeared suspended in the air a various heights, because nobody had figured out how to portray people at different distances?)

The installation is temperature and humidity controlled, limited number of people in the room at any one time, no flash photography, etc. Just as well - I am certain any number of rubes would try to put things down on the shelves, which clearly have "legs" supporting the cantilevered edges, the legs themselves have shadows, etc. All in 2-D
I still have a guidebook - kept it from 2001, I was so impressed.
I have attached a couple of shots from the guide. The slight curvature is due to Photographing the pages - the actual panels are flat.

Notice the change in shading of the components of the lattices in the cabinet doors, depending on whether they are above or below the incident light. Also notice the disks-on-a-dowel ornamentation around the cabinet with the parrot cage inside: the orientation of the disks changes, depending on their position relative to an artificial horizon at average (shortish Italian) eye height.
And how about that portable organ on the shelf? There re a few anomalies in the fluting of the "columns" on either side - probably due to repairs.

None of this takes away from the superlative artistry of Scott or Rick Gady - they are standing on the shoulders of comparable artists.
Sorry about the third photo - have not got the hang of rotating yet.