Gaming piece with the Eleventh Labour of Hercules, carved elephant ivory, Cologne, ca. 1150

This gaming piece shows the Eleventh Labour of Hercules, where the hero battles against the serpent-dragon guarding the Apples of the Hesperides. The scene is enclosed by a border of quatrefoils separated by two rectangular fillets. There are some small losses to the outer rim of the border.

In the Soltiykoff collection, Paris, by 1851; sold at the Soltykoff sale in Paris, lot 374, and there bought by Beurdeley. On loan to the museum by John Webb, from 1867. Purchased from Webb, £5 10s.

The present gaming piece belongs to a group of ten, four with scenes from the life of Samson and six with Hercules scenes (Mann 1980). It is likely that they all come from the same set, and that the two sides were differentiated by colour, the Samson disks all being stained red. The pieces are linked by their dimensions, the distinctive figure and drapery style, and by the decorative repertory of their borders. The quatrefoil and fillet decoration seen on this piece matches that on two of the samson pieces now in Paris and in Florence. Several other pieces showing scenes from the Samson-Hercules stories, in closely related styles but not from the same set, may be linked to the group. A further tableman has since appeared, sold at Christie's in London (16 December 1986, lot 84); this shows Samson being led to prison and grinding the millstone, and is now in the Thomson collection in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Tronto; and a fragmentary piece of Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar appeared the year before (Christie's, London, 3 July 1985, lot 18).

The presence of the so-called 'gestichelte' ('pricked' or 'stitched') style of carving the draperies, using a technique of short strokes at right angles to the longer lines of drapery folds clearly links the tablemen to a group of walrus-ivory reliefs produced in Cologne in the middle of the twelfth century. It has been proposed that the patron of the Samson-Hercules backgammon set was a Cologne Jew named Samson, but this must remain as circumstantial conjecture (Mann 2005).

Round gaming pieces such as this one almost certainly belonged to sets of 'tablemen'. The game of tables, or backgammon, was popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, draughts only becoming established in the later Middle Ages. There were fifteen counters to each side, and twelfth-century boards inlaid with bone settings have been excavated at Gloucester and Saint- Denis. Only one full set with two sides of fifteen counters and a board, that at Gloucester, still exists, but it is clear that a great variety of subjects was carved on the discs, ranging from single animals to scenes from classical mythology.

This gaming piece shows a man armed with a sword and shield fighting with a serpent which winds itself in and out of the branches of a tree. It is representing Hercules coping with his eleventh labour, where he battles against the serpent-dragon guarding the Apples of the Hesperides. Cycles drawn from the life of Hercules are very rare in Western medieval art of this period.

The game of tables, or backgammon was popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, draughts only becoming established in the later Middle Ages. There were fifteen counters to each side, and twelfth-century boards inlaid with bone settings have been excavated at Gloucester and Saint- Denis. Only one full set with two sides of fifteen counters and a board, that at Gloucester, still exists, but it is clear that a great variety of subjects was carved on the discs, ranging from single animals to scenes from classical mythology.

374-1871