Backgammon Board thumbnail 1
Backgammon Board thumbnail 2
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Backgammon Board

1670-1700 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Eger in Bohemia, now Cheb in the Czech Republic, became famous in the first half of the seventeenth century for a particularly complex type of marquetry. This mixed flat veneers with thicker pieces of wood, the surfaces of which were then carved in low relief. The resulting panels were more like some types of Italian work in pietre dure or hardstones. Very often the wood was originally brightly stained, which would have made the similarity even closer. The front of the games board is decorated with a scene showing the Greek sun god Apollo (with a bow and arrow) killing the Python, the dragon-like creature that inhabited Delphi, one of the main sites of religious observance in Greece. The tale was told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, and was often illustrated in engravings published in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The maker of the marquetry would have used such engravings as a model for his work but unfortunately we have not yet identified which of the many published versions of the scene was his model.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 27 parts.

  • Games Board
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Ebonised Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
  • Draughtsman
Materials and techniques
Wood, with veneers of walnut and Eger marquetry of various woods
Brief description
The top decorated with a panel of Eger marquetry showing Apollo (with a bow and arrow), slaying the earth dragon of Delphi, the Python, with a putto to one side. The interior veneered with walnut and other woods; Eger, 1670-1700
Physical description
Pair of hinged games boards which close to form a box with a sprung catch, veneered with walnut and other woods, possibly including olive wood; with 26 turned and carved wood draughtsmen, 13 pale and 13 stained dark. The outside has a marquetry chess board on one side (recto) and an Eger type marquetry panel on the verso, the sides of the box are plain veneered. Each of the veneered borders of the outside panels contains a paired V motif and corner squares. Inside are a pair of backgammon boards, the sides of which (50mm high) are distinctively dished (concave).

On the recto is an 8x8 chequer board of light and dark woods, with a quatrefoil rosette in each square. The verso panel of carved marquetry with some green staining depicts a landscape with trees, a city and a distant conflagration. In the foreground on the left is a male figure in classical armour (Apollo) with bow and a quiver of arrows, standing beside a dragon with an arrow through its neck; to the right stands a naked male putto (Cupid) with bow and a quiver of arrows on the ground.

The inside, laid out for backgammon, is inlaid on a ground of sycamore(?) with 24 alternating obelisks and dolphin-like sea-monsters, six on each side of each board, with a central divider of engraved and singed 'bricks' . Each obelisk consists of an exploding grenade atop a green stained pyramid on which is mounted a lion mask with drapery swags; the pyramid rests on two balls above a pedestal. Each dolphin perches vertically on a green ball, and with its tail raised and from which hang four fishing lines.

There are twenty-six draughtsmen in turned hardwood, possibly sycamore(?), 13 stained black, each carved with a different stylised flower in low relief against a punched, granular ground, and turned with concentric rings and mouldings on the verso. The brass hinges are held with modern(?) screws. The brass lock and catch are fixed with brass pins.

Condition
The chess board is split into two sections and warped.
The brass hinges and catch are simpler than those found on many published Eger boards; the imperfect cutting of veneers around one hinge suggest that they may be replacements. The spring mechanism does not operate effectively.
Dimensions
  • Length: 90cm (open, including metal catches)
  • Width: 44.2cm (closed excl catches)
  • Thickness: 65mm (each board)
  • Diameter: 54mm (Each turned draughtsman, 12mm thick)
Measured NH Nov 2019: box closed 442 x 442 x 129mm; box open 442 x 900 x 65mm Measurements from catalogue: 140 x 443 x443 mm H W D (closed)
Credit line
Given by Major Robert Woodhouse
Object history
Given by Major Robert Woodhouse, 13 Mount Street, Mayfair, 'slightly in need of repair...South German, about 1600'
Exhibited in Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered, 8 October 2016 – 23 April 2017, Museum of Childhood
Historical context
Subjects depicted
This represents the Greek sun god Apollo killing the dragon of Delphi. Ovid's Metamorphoses records the story in Book I, lines 438-472. The story was frequently depicted in engravings in the 16th and 17th centuries but the exact engraving from which this was copied has not been identified.

Eger Marquetry
This particular form of sculpted marquetry was developed in Eger, Bohemia, in the early 17th century and the trade was at its height between about 1640 and 1680. It involved the setting of multiple pieces of wood, both native-grown and imported from tropical areas, each of them of different thicknesses, allowing for bas-relief carving to complete the image. The wood was set on a base of softwood, usually spruce, pine or fir. Mahogany, walnut and maple were particularly used for the marquetry, together with burr woods (highly figured wood cut from the roots or base of trees), which was used to create particular effects. Details might be added by engraving or by inlaying minute pieces of wood or other materials into the marquetry pieces.

The images created in this marquetry were often base on widely available engravings and could illustrate all sorts of scenes, biblical narratives and classical myths being among the most popular. Certain families became particularly known for this work, amongst them the Eck family and the Fischer family.

Eger marquetry had a particular vogue in the 19th century, when it was admired for its high technical excellence. As is obvious from the history of this piece, however, it was not necessarily recognized for what it was and could even attributed to quite different places of manufacture. The V&A has a number of pieces of Eger marquetry, including a games board with a panel showing the death of Absalom (W.61-1938)) and a large cabinet-on-stand (W.42-1977) . It also has a number of small table cabinets made up with re-used Eger panels (museum nos. 7823-1861, 21-1884 and W.38 to 40-1939) which are evidence of the 19th-century popularity of such marquetry.

Comparable gamesboards
V&A 225-1876
V&A 239-1855
Christies London 7/7/2016 lot 303, silver mounted folding games box signed by Adam Eck, dated 1664

Jochen Voigt: Reliefintarsien aus Eger. (Halle an der Salle, 1999), p.296 ff.

Based on comparison with similar Eger boards illustrated in Voigt, W.85-1923 is less elaborately decorated than most although the figurative panel is typically high quality without obvious signs of reduced quality: it lacks relief ornaments on its framing elements, has the relatively simple execution of interior inlay, the draughtsmen are plain-turned on one side rather than carved on both sides. All the basic elements are seen on other boards, some of which signed for the workshop of Adam Eck: the mythological scene in a landscape, the combination of backgammon sea-monsters and obelisks (Voigt fig 199), the flowers on the draughtsmen (Voigt fig. 216), the stylised flower head on the chessboard (cf Voigt fig 197).
Subjects depicted
Place depicted
Summary
Eger in Bohemia, now Cheb in the Czech Republic, became famous in the first half of the seventeenth century for a particularly complex type of marquetry. This mixed flat veneers with thicker pieces of wood, the surfaces of which were then carved in low relief. The resulting panels were more like some types of Italian work in pietre dure or hardstones. Very often the wood was originally brightly stained, which would have made the similarity even closer. The front of the games board is decorated with a scene showing the Greek sun god Apollo (with a bow and arrow) killing the Python, the dragon-like creature that inhabited Delphi, one of the main sites of religious observance in Greece. The tale was told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, and was often illustrated in engravings published in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The maker of the marquetry would have used such engravings as a model for his work but unfortunately we have not yet identified which of the many published versions of the scene was his model.
Bibliographic reference
Heribert Sturm, "Egerer Reliefintarsien". Collegium Carolinum Band 13. (Prag. 1961), p.128, figs. 96, 98
Collection
Accession number
W.85 to Z-1923

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
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