DAMASCUS In a world where age-old crafts are rapidly disappearing, the art of instarsia or marquetry has not only recovered in Damascus but appears to be thriving. It nearly died. Between 1955 and 1980 there were almost no pieces like this being made, said Mohammed Sanadiki, sitting in a room crammed with exquisite examples of his work in which fragments of wood, bone, ivory and mother of pearl are set into furniture and ornaments.

But after 1980 the business returned to life there were no old pieces left to sell and people wanted more. Today Sanadiki, expanding on a family tradition that goes back at least three generations, is just finishing a spacious new factory on the eastern edge of Damascus to serve his expanding market in the Persian Gulf and neighboring Lebanon. His approximately 80 workers are divided into separate tasks the craftsman of old who built an object by himself, taking as long as he needed, has almost disappeared.

Before one person could work for months on one piece, as if he was producing for a museum, said Sanadiki. We could do pieces like the old ones but the problem now is it is very expensive. The volume of work is far bigger than before, he said. Before, my father could count the number of pieces he did in a year.

What they did in a year we could do in a week. Small Items for Tourists The best-known products of the Damascene factories Sanadiki estimates there might be up to 2,000 people working in them are the ornate boxes and similar small items sold to tourists. This is an area he rarely touches, specialising instead in top-of-the-market production of chairs, desks, tables and sofas.

He uses none of the plastic that has devalued the mass-produced boxes for tourists. There is strong family pride. This is my grandfather's house and my father worked here, Sanadiki, 40, said in a room of the old Damascene house. It is in a poor area of wet, winding alleys, hidden behind drab walls that carry no hint of the interior.

The ceilings are carved, the wall panels painted. A fountain stands beside a large lemon tree filled with birds in the courtyard that is the focus of the surrounding rooms. Sanadiki now uses the old family house as an office. I learned from my father, he said. From about 14 or 15 I learned by doing things and before that I just watched and asked my father what he was doing.

One has to love this work to be a success. Love alone would not have kept the business going. But higher oil prices created a new class of rich in the Persian Gulf who could afford the best Sanadiki's part of a 1992 contract to furnish a palace for Saudi Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the nominal head of allied forces during the Persian Gulf war against Iraq, was worth $2 million.

The recovery of Lebanon since the end of its civil war in 1990 has opened another market with rich individuals building lavish homes that display their wealth. Ten years ago we used to make decoration for a hall, said Sanadiki. Now we do the whole house in this style. The style is not to everyone's liking. Sanadiki says the limited European exports focus on marquetry using only wood the flashier mother-of-pearl inlay that is popular in the Arab world does not find many customers in the west.

But the prices of handmade sofas at $1,200, a chair at $600 or a desk at $1,100 do not seem excessive when Middle East customers have been spending larger sums on imported upholstered furniture from the West that lasts only a few years. Future Seems Secure The business will remain subject to the vagaries of fashion, but seems secure for the foreseeable future.

Sanadiki said other manufacturers were reporting strong sales and he has shown his own confidence by building a new factory with nearly five times as much space. He has just discovered that his furniture and accompanying decoration for a house in Laguna Beach, California, was featured in the November edition of the prestigious U.S. magazine architectural digest. While he may not be producing the museum pieces made by craftsmen of the past, he is still meticulous about the materials: walnut aged up to six years is a favorite wood and mother-of-pearl is imported from the philippines at 100 times the cost of the plastic found in the cheapest products.

but he says modern tools have increased quality as well as speed for a larger output, allowing more precision and less waste as the thin layers of patterned veneer are sliced and applied to the surfaces. The business is getting more complicated than before. We used to depend on simple tools. Sometimes, when it's a simple business like just making chairs, a couple of people can do it.

But if you are trying to fill a chateau it is different. The craft has been put onto a business footing, and seems the more secure for it. In another room of his Damascus office a young woman who had recently graduated in engineering was working with a computer, drawing new designs for the furniture. (Reuter)