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Lot Essay
Games boards were amongst the first articles encountered by the Europeans in India which they could use. In their writings, a number of contemporary travellers comment upon them. Among the articles he saw in India in around 1516, Duarte Barbosa, the Portugese writer, recorded 'bracelets, sword-hilts, dice, chessmen and chessboards' (D.Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, translated from Portuguese, ed. and annotated by M.L.Dames, Vol. I, London, 1918-21, pp.141-42 and quoted in Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India. The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London, 2002, p.21). John Huygen van Linschoten similarly mentions them in The Voyage of John Huygen van Linschoten to the East Indies in the second half of the 16th century. Franceso Pelsaert wrote that in Sindh in 1626 'draught-boards, writing cases, and similar goods are manufactured locally in large quantities; they are very prettily inlaid with ivory and ebony, and used to be exported in large quantities to Goa and the coast towns' (The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, p.32, quoted in Jaffer, op.cit., p.21).
A similar board to the present is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Amin Jaffer, op.cit. pp.20-21, no.4). Each board is configured in such a way that there is a lattice for chess on one side and divisions for tric-trac (a precursor to backgammon) on the other. Each board is veneered with ebony and inlaid with ivory and sadeli, a micro-mosaic of woods and metals arranged in geometric patterns. This technique is particularly associated with the Near and Middle East, from where it spread east to Iran and India and west to Italy (where it was known as alla certosina. In relation ot the V&A example, Jaffer writes that had it not been for the use of tropical woods in the manufacture of the board it may well have been made in sixteenth century Italy in that the aesthetic conforms with examples of woodwork produced there in the 'veneto-saracenic' style.
Another similar example is published by Ángel Galán y Galindo, Marfiles Medievales Del Islam (Catálogo de Piezas), Tomo II, Cordoba, 2005, p.484). Jaffer refers to a fourth comparable that is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich (R.1099) (Jaffer, op.cit., p. 21).
A similar board to the present is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Amin Jaffer, op.cit. pp.20-21, no.4). Each board is configured in such a way that there is a lattice for chess on one side and divisions for tric-trac (a precursor to backgammon) on the other. Each board is veneered with ebony and inlaid with ivory and sadeli, a micro-mosaic of woods and metals arranged in geometric patterns. This technique is particularly associated with the Near and Middle East, from where it spread east to Iran and India and west to Italy (where it was known as alla certosina. In relation ot the V&A example, Jaffer writes that had it not been for the use of tropical woods in the manufacture of the board it may well have been made in sixteenth century Italy in that the aesthetic conforms with examples of woodwork produced there in the 'veneto-saracenic' style.
Another similar example is published by Ángel Galán y Galindo, Marfiles Medievales Del Islam (Catálogo de Piezas), Tomo II, Cordoba, 2005, p.484). Jaffer refers to a fourth comparable that is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich (R.1099) (Jaffer, op.cit., p. 21).