An exquisite Chinese black lacquer games box with mother of pearl counters, circa 18th century, containing eight lacquer boxes for games playing cards and for holding MOP counters, All the boxes are decorated with a flowered design and the top of the box has a traditional village scene.
 
A Stunning Georgian era game box. These boxes were also used to play the popular game back then called Bezique or whist. Back from an era when there were smoking rooms and illegal gambling in houses of ill repute :) VERY IMPORTANT for these sets are the MOP chips or counters, that they are carved and polished to a very high standard which these are. There are 210 pieces in this set. 156 long rectangle, 38 short rectangle and 16 round counters The entire set is original and in good condition and has not been restored .
 
Condition is very good with minor loss of the mop consistent with age, crackling of the lacquer in some seams. Very usable or as an addition to your vintage games collection. A beautiful piece in every way.
 
The box measures approx. 9.50 inches wide 9.50 inches deep 2.00 inches high.
 
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A little History:
The Chinese have long enjoyed the reputation of being some of the world’s most compulsive gamblers. So an enterprising trader must have seen the Chinese gambling with simple yet fine mother-of-pearl counters decorated with traditional Chinese designs, and brought some back to Europe. The counters must have been a success because repeat orders were sent. The supercargoes were allowed space in the ship’s hold for their own personal trading and it seems that these counters were soon being brought back in large numbers. The Chinese decoration was quickly influenced by European tastes. In much the same way as the production of porcelain was an amalgam of European and Chinese styles, so it was with mother-of-pearl counters. It was the height of fashion for the rich families of Europe to have personalized Chinese porcelain dinner-services. Complex orders were placed requiring several hundred pieces of porcelain to be decorated with a monogram, family crest, coat of arms or in some cases all three, copied from an original sent with the trader. The logistics of this are quite incredible: an order was decided perhaps in Devon for three hundred pieces of blue and white porcelain of a specified style with highly detailed decoration to be copied from a library bookplate, following complex heraldic conventions. This order was taken to London by a servant – in itself a risky business in the early 1700’s. The order was given to the East India Company supercargo or captain; the order then went around the world in a sailing boat as one small part of a complex series of deals; it was then delivered to a Chinese merchant in Canton in one of the “factories” or “hongs” on the banks of the Pearl River in Canton. It is claimed that some of the Chinese merchants did not commit the order to paper but relied on their memory. An agreement was then made to return to the trading point in a year’s time to collect the completed order. Hundreds of such orders were produced and survived the journey back to London, the crowds in the auction houses and the journey back to the original country estate in a cart. Many pieces still survive 300 years later. To cut a long story short, counters were produced to match the personalised porcelain services. The cost of a set of counters was huge (the equivalent of several thousand pounds at today’s prices) so it was only the very richest families which could afford them. Quite a few of the traders, supercargoes and sea captains, however, seem to have managed to procure themselves a set. So these orders often accompanied the orders for armorial porcelain services and will have taken two, perhaps three years to complete. Demand for counters clearly was high. The earliest counters reflect a strong Chinese influence, similar to the original counters, with “sketchy” flowers, single line borders (if any) and sparse decoration. But fashion moved on quickly and new shapes and techniques evolved. The earliest sets were probably in two shapes – rounds and fishes. Oblongs and squares were soon introduced. Borders became more pronounced and then evolved until late in their history they were the dominant feature of the design. Cross-hatching was a technique which soon developed, where fine shading was applied in certain parts of the counter. The quality of the mother-of-pearl develops; edges become milled like coins, counters become larger and thicker. By around 1840, counters have undergone a complete transformation. (cited from chezbill.com).