These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.
Download this imageCreative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.
One of a set of four counter boxes
Maker: Mariaval, Le Jeune
Rectangular ivory box, painted in colours on a green ground; decorated on the lid with a Cupid approaching a flaming heart in the midst of a thorn bush with 'apres les peines les plaisirs' inscribed on a scroll above
Ivory, stained green, engraved and painted in green, black yellow and pink, with gilt metal hinges. Rectangular, the base with straight sides. The moulded sides of the lid projecting slightly over the base. The two projecting hinges are pinned to a metal scroll inside the box. The upper surface and interior of the lid and the base are engraved in outline in black and painted on a green ground. The top of the lid is decorated with a roundel of Cupid approaching a thorny bush in the midst of which is a heart aflame. The scroll above the roundel is inscribed 'apres les peines les plaisirs'. The roundel is surrounded by scrolling foliage, flowers, pendant garlands and a shell in green, pink and yellow. At each corner is a swag of green fruit on a pink stippled ground. The inside of the lid is decorated with a dolphin surrounded by green, pink and yellow scrolling foliage and flowers within a black border beneath which is the inscription 'Mariaval le Jeune a Rouen fecit'. The base is decorated with a pink, green and yellow spray of three flowers in an ivory border. The box contains 19 long narrow counters decorated on both sides with a floral design on a green ground, and five elongated octagonal counters decorated on both sides with a green floral border, and numbered in black '5', '10', '20', '40' or '50'. Each counter is drilled with a small hole near the edge. (with M.14 & A-R-1938, M.15 & A-Z-1938 and M.16 & A-Y-1938)
History note: Sydney Ernest Kennedy (1855-1933); Christie, Manson & Woods, 18-22 March, 1918, Catalogue of the Important collection of objects of art, antiquities, armour and arms, formed by S.E. Kennedy, Esq. Who is giving up his residence, 24 Upper Brook Street, W. 5th day, 22 March, lot ; Leonard D. Cunliffe (1878 -1937)
L.D. Cunliffe Bequest, 1937
Height: 2.2 cm
Length: 8.7 cm
Width: 6.4 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1937-02-15) by Cunliffe, Leonard Daneham
18th Century, second quarter
Louis XV
Circa
1730
CE
-
Circa
1750
CE
Mariaval le Jeune was an engraver on ivory who signed boxes in Rouen and in Paris. His dates of birth and death are unknown but he was probably active in the second quarter of the 18th century. A box in the Victoria and Albert Museum is decorated with 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. His speciality was the production of sets of counter boxes for use in card games, which were coloured to indicate the suits in a pack of cards: red (or dark pink) for spades, green for diamonds, yellow for clubs and white for hearts. They usually contained counters of three shapes: long and narrow, elongated octagonal, and round. The Victoria & Albert Museum has a set of four boxes retaining all three shapes of counter (W.21A/1-1985), but the round ones are missing from all four of the Fitzwilliam's set (M.14 & A-R-1938, M.15 & A-Z-1938 and M.16 & A-Y-1938).They may have been used for reversis, an Italian card game which became popular elsewhere in western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.The object of the game was to avoid taking tricks, or exceptionally to take all, and involved the use of counters. The Cupid emblem on the top of the lid was probably copied from pl.XIII, emblem no. 3 in Nicolas Verrien's 'Recueil d’emblêmes, devises, medailles, et figures hieroglyphiques . . .', Paris (Jean Jombert), 1696 or an edition published by Claude Jombert in 1724. The motto, 'Après les peines, les plaisirs' is printed on the page following the plate.The first edition had been published in 1685 with the title 'Livre curieux et utile pour les Scavans et Artistes . . .' (Bibliothèque nationale de France, 31565159). The style of the scrollwork is closer to the Regence style (1714-23) than to the full-blown Rococo of the mid century, and this is probably why the Fitzwilliam's and similar boxes were previously dated to the early 18th century. This box is constructed differently to the three others in the set, in that the top of the lid is set into a frame rather than being carved from one piece of ivory.
Decoration
composed of
stain
( green)
paint
Ivory
Accession number: M.17 & A-X-1938
Primary reference Number: 166625
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "One of a set of four counter boxes" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/166625 Accessed: 2025-06-21 06:56:55
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/166625
|title=One of a set of four counter boxes
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-06-21 06:56:55|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-166625
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa24/M_17_1938_20_281_29.jpg"
alt="One of a set of four counter boxes"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">One of a set of four counter boxes</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...
