Counter Box
ca. 1750 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This box contains a set of four more boxes made to contain the counters necessary for playing a card game, probably reversis. This was an old Italian card game, the basis for two very popular 18th-century games, hombre and quadrille. Card playing was a necessary accomplishment for those hoping to take their place in polite society and all manner of people played at many levels of society. Such counter boxes would have been a luxurious and fashionable accessory for a card player of either sex. The outer box lid also features characters from the Commedia dell'arte; a singular Pierrot (the sad clown, pining for Columbine) at the bottom of the lid, with two sets of diametrically placed images of the lovers Harlequin and Columbine towards the centre. Centrally on the large box, and on either side of the ivory dial on each smaller box, are two central busts which may represent the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand and his second Dauphine Marie Josephe de Saxe.
The boxes and counters were colour coded to relate to the suits of a pack of cards. Green was for clubs, red for spades, yellow for diamonds and white for hearts. These boxes may have been made by, or in the workshop of, Mariaval. We know little about him, except that he obviously had a large trade in such items, as many sets survive. He may have been the son of the engraver to the king.
The boxes and counters were colour coded to relate to the suits of a pack of cards. Green was for clubs, red for spades, yellow for diamonds and white for hearts. These boxes may have been made by, or in the workshop of, Mariaval. We know little about him, except that he obviously had a large trade in such items, as many sets survive. He may have been the son of the engraver to the king.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Parts | This object consists of 5 parts.
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| Materials and techniques | Painted wood; stamped gilt paper; ivory, carved, joined and decorated with staining in a wax-resist technique, with additional decoration in penwork and paint; silk; pierced and engraved brass and engraved mother of pearl. |
| Brief description | Box with curved, hinged lid, painted in red and gilded, with figures from the Commedia dell'Arte, lined with silk and containing four ivory boxes for gaming counters |
| Physical description | A rectangular wooden box, with hinged lid of curved section, painted in red and decorated on lid with gilded scrolls and fleur-de-lys, acanthus leaves and Commedia dell'Arte figures, with Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot depicted, and two central busts which may represent the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand and his second Dauphine Marie Josephe de Saxe. The box is lined with blue silk and contains four smaller boxes with hinged lids, of wood, each painted a different colour (red, green, yellow and white), for gaming counters, each set in the centre of the lid with an ivory dial (for counting scores), decorated with penwork and resist-colouring in red and green. The lids of the boxes are decorated with heavy gilded scrolls, raised in relief, the corners set with fleur-de-lys, the areas to each side of the dials set with the same bust of a man and a woman in profile as on the large box lid, above pairs of dolphins (a single dolphin also shown on the dial). The boxes each contain several engraved mother of pearl playing pieces. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label |
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| Object history | These boxes may have been made in the workshop of Mariaval le Jeune (Mariaval the Younger). He seems to have made a speciality of such boxes, featuring ivory stained with this form of wax resist, with details added in penwork and paint. Such boxes are traditionally attributed to a tabletier, a maker of small boxes, of this name, who worked in Paris and, possibly, Rouen. A notarial deed dated 1727 records the name of a Claude-François Mariaval who was engraver to the king (graveur du roi). This could be the maker of the boxes, or more likely, it was his son who made them. Sets of boxes decorated in the same technique appear regularly at auction and others are held by museums, including the Musées des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. One or more of the boxes in most of these sets is signed by Mariaval. The boxes must have been made in the years around the middle of the 18th century, although in a rather old-fashioned style of decoration. They show portrait profiles of Louis Ferdinand, Dauphin of France (1729-1765) and his second wife, Marie Josephe de Saxe (1731-1767) who did not marry until 1747. |
| Historical context | Such boxes were made in sets of four to hold counters for a card game, probably the game of reversis, an old Italian card game, from which the games of hombre and quadrille were derived in the 18th century. Such games were popular throughout Europe at the time, particularly quadrille. The four boxes were coloured green (for clubs), red (for spades), yellow (for diamonds) and white (for hearts). The counters for such boxes were made in three shapes, shorter and longer rectangular pieces and also circular pieces. |
| Literary reference | Commedia dell'arte |
| Summary | This box contains a set of four more boxes made to contain the counters necessary for playing a card game, probably reversis. This was an old Italian card game, the basis for two very popular 18th-century games, hombre and quadrille. Card playing was a necessary accomplishment for those hoping to take their place in polite society and all manner of people played at many levels of society. Such counter boxes would have been a luxurious and fashionable accessory for a card player of either sex. The outer box lid also features characters from the Commedia dell'arte; a singular Pierrot (the sad clown, pining for Columbine) at the bottom of the lid, with two sets of diametrically placed images of the lovers Harlequin and Columbine towards the centre. Centrally on the large box, and on either side of the ivory dial on each smaller box, are two central busts which may represent the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand and his second Dauphine Marie Josephe de Saxe. The boxes and counters were colour coded to relate to the suits of a pack of cards. Green was for clubs, red for spades, yellow for diamonds and white for hearts. These boxes may have been made by, or in the workshop of, Mariaval. We know little about him, except that he obviously had a large trade in such items, as many sets survive. He may have been the son of the engraver to the king. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 1444 to D-1902 |
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| Record created | November 7, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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