Growing up, I enjoyed all sorts of games — Scrabble in particular, but also the various card games I enjoyed playing with my late father. I’m sure many of us relate to certain games we favored in our youth and possibly still enjoy playing them today.
Familiar as I was with the games in my day, I was not that up on those that were enjoyed hundreds of years ago. I was aware chess was played in early times, thanks to Renaissance painter Lucas van Leyden, who executed a painting depicting a group of men playing chess.
Surely, there had to have been other games being played back then. I discovered there were when I came upon an early ink drawing from the 17th century, now in my collection, that shows officers and soldiers playing a game of dice. I subsequently learned that soldiers during this period often would flatten lead musket balls into cubes to make dice, or fashion dice out of wood.
Testament that soldiers and sailors played dice goes back even earlier. Evidence of dice exists from a pair similar in size salvaged from the wreck of the Mary Rose. One of the largest ships in the English fleet, the remarkable Mary Rose sank in 1545 and finally was salvaged in 1982.
During this historical recovery, an abundance of important and vital material was brought to the surface that gave us a glimpse into the lives of the sailors on board, as well as a good sense of what life was all about in Tudor England.
Thanks to examples salvaged from the ship, we now know for sure the soldiers and sailors aboard the Mary Rose played a variety of games, including backgammon, a game still popular today, as well as dice.
EARLY PAINTINGS
Early Dutch and European paintings that depicted drunks in taverns often showed them playing cards, as well as dice. Drinking always seems to be a part of this sport, as evidenced by those large pottery jugs shown resting on the floor in many Dutch paintings, especially those depicting tavern scenes.
In fact, quite a few artists painted characters playing dice, which made me wonder just how far back we can date the game. Though it is considered one of the oldest gaming implements known to man, the origin of dice remains a mystery to this day.
Dice, as we know it, has a long and interesting history. In 400 BC, the Greek poet Sophocles claimed that dice was invented by the Greeks; this has yet to be proven. There is evidence of dice in Egyptian tombs dating as far back as 2,000 BC, but, thanks to archaeological digs, we are able to place them back even further to 6,000 BC.
Whatever the case may be, dice were used by numerous ancient cultures — but not always as a gaming device. Centuries ago, casting dice was a method of prediction utilized by certain rulers.
Before the standard cube-shaped dice we know today came into being, ancient people used various pieces to play the game, including seashells or nut shells, which also were used in fortune-telling.
SKILLED PLAYERS
For the record, both the Romans and Greeks were considered skilled dice players, with Roman emperors reputed to have been compulsive players of the game. In England hundreds of years later, there is mention that Richard the Lion Heart and King John both enjoyed playing a game of dice, especially when it involved gambling and betting. Henry VIII, who was a notorious dice player, lost a betting game of dice that eventually cost him the bells of St. Paul’s Church.
English inns were notorious hangouts for those looking to bet in a game of dice. Some early English etchings depict groups of men playing with chips and dice, an indication gambling was in full swing back then!
Through the ages, there have been a handful of artists who executed paintings that show men engaged in a game of dice. Aside from those Dutch painters who specialized in genre scenes in the 17th century, there were artists and engravers working at earlier dates, whose work recorded men playing dice, as well as cards.
An anonymous 16th-century artist known as the “Master with the Dice” was active around 1530-1560. He was an Italian engraver, who owes his name to his habit of autographing most of his prints with dice. Although he has not been identified to this day, he is known to be linked to the workshop of Marcantonio Raimondi, an artist working in Rome during the mid 16th century.
Another celebrated artist, an Italian master by the name of Caravaggio (Michelangelo da Merisi), produced in oils “The Cardsharps,” which was painted in the year 1594, and is now displayed at the Kimbell Art Museum in Forth Worth, Texas. In this painting, we see a group of soldiers playing cards, a popular subject during the early 17th century, especially in Italy.
The Dutch painters of the 17th century were notorious for painting genre subjects that incorporated card-playing as well as a good game of dice. A well-known painting of the time, titled “The Gamblers” was executed in 1623 and shows a group of men enjoying a game of dice. It was painted by Hendrick Ter Brugghen, who was born in Utrecht 1588-1629 and specialized in religious and history paintings, and on occasion, genre subjects. A similar painting, seen here, was executed in the Netherlands during the 17th century and captures a few men drinking and playing a game of dice.
FABRICATION
Dice were made from a variety of materials such as bone, lead, crystal, ivory, silver, gold, glass, jade, brass, wood, marble, bakelite, porcelain and other expensive and inexpensive materials. They also were made in numerous interesting and intriguing shapes, such as a trapezoidal design, 14-sided, two-sided and four-sided elliptical.
If you are interested in collecting dice, visit musems that house them to get a better understanding with regard to dating these small objects. For starters, when searching for dice, always remember to look for worn corners, dents and nicks and cracks, even though the condition may be of less importance to you.
Read up on the history of dice and avoid common dice, like those from a casino and souvenir dice, as they are a dime a dozen. Learn the many materials that have been used in making dice and you might come upon a pair that was played with by someone hundreds of years ago.
George Way's Antiques column appears on the third Friday of the month in Home.