Set Pieces

For anyone who has been aboard Lord and Lady Laidlaw’s 68m Feadship, Lady Christine, it will have been hard to miss the impressive marquetry murals that adorn the walls. Created by Welsh marquetry studio, Aryma, the largest of these is an 18-sqm panel that depicts a montage of some of the wonders of the world, such as the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa. This piece is so overwhelming in its attention to detail it could easily be assumed that it had been partially painted. The Superyacht Owner caught up with Howard Sansome, the owner of Aryma, to learn about a table that they just completed for a new superyacht at a leading Dutch shipyard.



“It is not uncommon for us to get quite close to the owners and with the Lady Christine panel, I would say we worked in equal parts with the designer and the owners,” says Sansome. “But in the case of this project, everything went via the shipyard, as the owner of shipyard had first hand experience of our work and felt that Aryma was right for developing this piece.” The piece in question is a four-metre long table with a surface that looks like it has been strewn with hundreds of autumnal leaves. “We had a preliminary sketch of a pile of leaves strewn on top of a table,” Sansome tells us. “The brief was very simple and uncomplicated. They just wanted 'leaves' scattered on the tabletop!”



Each leaf component on the table is different and had to be individually cut and almost all the veneers have been dyed using natural colours. “It worked very well because we could use natural veneers, in natural colours because they emphasised the autumnal nature of the design,” says Sansome. “We weren’t trying to make bright veneers that looked like pieces of plastic.” For Sansome the real challenge of the project was trying to bring the random, organic feel that was inherent in the brief to life but as it turned out, it was this very organic, randomness that made it perfect for marquetry.



While the panels on Lady Christine took nine months from conception to completion, the leaf table took about four months from start to finish. With this project finished, work doesn’t let up for Aryma. It has several unique projects ticking along in the background, including half a dozen for superyachts that will span over the next couple of years, as well as work for the superyacht owners’ homes as well.

You can read more about Aryma and its work in Q12 of SuperyachtDesign, out now. Details of how to subscribe to SuperyachtDesign can be found here.

---

Click here to become part of The Superyacht Group community, and join us in our mission to make this industry accessible to all, and prosperous for the long-term. We are offering access to the superyacht industry’s most comprehensive and longstanding archive of business-critical information, as well as a comprehensive, real-time superyacht fleet database, for just £10 per month, because we are One Industry with One Mission. Sign up here.