Gaming Set, Probably Made for the Russian Court
Du Paquier Porcelain Manufactory (Vienna)
c. 1735
- Medium
- Hard-paste porcelain, polychrome enamels, gold, and diamonds
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 1993.349.2: 8.6 × 16.9 × 14.2 cm (3 3/8 × 6 5/8 × 5 9/16 in.); 1993.349.3-6: 6.1 × 7 × 5.8 cm (2 3/8 × 2 3/4 × 2 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Vienna
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Eloise W. Martin fund; Richard T. Crane and Mrs. J. Ward Thorne endowments; through prior gift of The Antiquarian Society
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This richly decorated gaming box ranks among the most exceptional works of art produced by the Du Paquier Porcelain Manufactory during its short twenty-five-year existence. Mounted with gold plaques and painted with colored enamels and gilding, the box opens to reveal four small, similarly decorated porcelain containers. These smaller boxes are mounted with gold and set with diamonds; each, when opened, reveals two types of porcelain gambling chips. The boxes were painted according to a complex, tightly organized decorative scheme. The lid of the large box depicts three trompe l’oeil playing cards that appear to have been carelessly thrown down. Each of the corners of the box and lid is painted with a network of violet and gold ornaments characteristic of the factory’s mature, late-Baroque style. With its liberal use of gold and diamonds, this work was certainly among the most extravagant objects crafted at the Du Paquier manufactory. The box may have been presented as a diplomatic gift, perhaps from the Austrian Habsburgs to their Russian Romanov counterparts.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
