Folding Games Board
ca. 1855 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This games box follows a standard Vizagapatam design. Vizagapatam was a port on the east coast of India famous for its luxury furniture worked with ivory. The outside of the box is marked for chess, with squares of ivory contrasting with squares of either ebony, horn, sandalwood or tortoiseshell. On the inside the same materials mark the alternating triangles and borders used in backgammon. One end of the box resembles the tooled leather binding of a book. Sometimes the maker would engrave the 'binding' with the title of a book to make it look even more realistic.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Wood, the exterior veneered with ivory, engraved and highlighted with lac, and partly veneereed with tortoiseshell, the edges of the hinged lid and box faced with buffalo horn, the interior lined with sandalwood, with a silvered brass lock |
| Brief description | Chessboard, ca. 1855, Andra Pradesh. |
| Physical description | Wood chessboard veneered with ivory, engraved and highlighted with lac and partly veneereed with tortoiseshell. The edges of the hinged lid and box are faced with buffalo horn and a silvered brass lock and the interior lined with sandalwood. |
| Dimensions |
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| Summary | This games box follows a standard Vizagapatam design. Vizagapatam was a port on the east coast of India famous for its luxury furniture worked with ivory. The outside of the box is marked for chess, with squares of ivory contrasting with squares of either ebony, horn, sandalwood or tortoiseshell. On the inside the same materials mark the alternating triangles and borders used in backgammon. One end of the box resembles the tooled leather binding of a book. Sometimes the maker would engrave the 'binding' with the title of a book to make it look even more realistic. |
| Bibliographic reference | Jaffer, Amin Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. London : V&A Publications, 2001. 416 p., ill. ISBN 1851773185.p.209, pl.53. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 02288(IS) |
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| Record created | December 2, 2002 |
| Record URL |
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