18th century games & gaming equipment

Last updated: Dec 13, 2024

This page includes ball-games, including billiards, jeu de paume, and ninepins.

See also toys & playthings, playing-cards, and board games elsewhere on this site.

Dice

Find 18th century dice on eBay.

• Gaming-box and die, Bernstein, East Prussia
• Ivory dice and shakers
• Miniature (½") bone dice
• Miniature bone dice
• A Rake’s Progress: The Gaming House by William Hogarth, 1732-1735
• Dice-players by Giuseppe Maria Crespi, 1740s
• Dice players in a Venetian square by Francesco Guardi

Knucklebones

• The Game of Knucklebones (also here) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, 1734
• Boys playing knuckle bones by Thomas Barker

Tops

I've moved these over to the toys page.

Battledores & shuttlecocks

• l'Etude veut du relache, 1714
• Landscape by Jacob Appel, second quarter of the 18th century
• La Gouvernante by Jean-Bapiste-Siméon Chardin, 1739
• Girl with racket and shuttlecock by Jean-Bapiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1740
• The Shuttlecock Game by Johann Heinrich Keller, 1743
• The Diverſion of Battledore and Shittlecock
• Wilbraham Tollemache, c. 1750
• Battledore and Shuttlecock, 1756
• Thomas Aston Coffin by John Singleton Copley, 1758
• Portrait of a boy by John Singleton Copley, c. 1758-1760
• Portrait of a boy, probably of the Crossfield family by William Williams, c. 1770-1775
• Het meest, ô Jeugdt! dat gy hier ziet, Is Kinderſpel
• Dionys Eliasz van Nijmegen by Dionys van Nijmegen, 1790
• Kenneth Dixon playing shuttlecock by William Beechey, c. 1790
• Portrait of an unknown family by Jean Humbert, last quarter of the 18th century/li>
• Family portrait of J.A. van Loon, Johann Wilhelm Bungenberg, and Anna Maria Sophia Bungenberg by Rienk Jelgerhuis, 1800
• Syburgh Hendrika Royaards with three of her children by Rienk Jelgerhuis, 1800

Billiards

• Billiard Players by Nicolas Lancret
• The Billiard Match by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1735

Cricket

• A game of trap ball before a church tower
• Games at Vauxhall: Playing at cricket, c. 1743
• The Game at Cricket as play’d in the Artillary Ground London, c. 1752-1754
• The Cricket Players of Europe, c. 1757
• Walter Hawkesworth Fawkes, c. 1760
• The Cricketers by Benjamin West, 1764
• Charles Collyer as a boy, with a cricket bat by Francis Cotes, 1766
• Lewis Cage by Francis Cotes, 1768
• Boys playing cricket near Putney School by James Miller, c. 1775-1785
• Miss Wicket and Miss Trigger, 1778
• Cricket match played by the Countess of Derby and other ladies, 1779
• Richard Heber by John Singleton Copley, 1782
• Cricket played by the Gentlemens Club, Whiteconduit House by Robert Dighton, 1784
• The children of Hugh and Sarah Wood of Swanwick, Derbyshire by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1789
• A game of cricket, c. 1790-1799
• The North West View of Colchester Castle, 1791
• Mr Hope of Amsterdam playing cricket with his friends by Jean François (le Romain) Sablet, 1792
• William, Mary Ann, and John De la Pole as children by Thomas Beach, 1793
• The Red Boy: Portrait of Master McDonough, full-length, in a red jacket and breeches with a black hat, holding a cricket bat, in a wooded landscape by John Opie
• Generous Schoolboys (The Collection for a Soldier’s Widow) by William Redmore Bigg
• Three children of the Larking family by John Downman

Cup and ball

• Charlotte Mercier ('Miss playing with Cup and Ball'), 1740s-1750s

Bilboquet, (jeu) petit bâton tourné, avec une cavité à chacun de ſes bouts; on jette en l’air une petite boule attachée à un fil qui tient au milieu du bilbouquet, & on tàche de faire retomber & reſter dans une des deux cavités. (Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1777)

• Lignum vitae bilboquet, also known as a cup and ball; England, c. 1770
• Le jeu du billeboquet, c. 1780
• Portrait of a family by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1783-1793

Marbles

• 18th century clay marbles at the Museum of London: A5486, A5487, A5488, A5489, A5490, A5491, A5492, A5493, A5494, A5495, A13519, A13520, A13521, A13522, A22738; most are painted with marbled patterns, A22738 is just painted and glazed
• A game of marbles, c. 1776-1800
• A clay marble excavated in the slave quarters of the Royall House
• Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland: Marbles

Jeu de paume

• Vue d’un jeu de paume
• A racket for playing jeu de paume
• A racket and a ball
• Paumier (plates 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9), Diderot’s Encyclopédie, 1765

Ninepins, skittles, and other bowling games

• Le Jeu de quilles tapestry woven by Willem Werniers, c. 1691-1710
• A dancing couple in an outdoor musical party by Joseph François Nollekens
• Apes playing skittles by Leonard Schenk, c. 1720
• A game of skittles by Pieter Angellis, 1727
• Playing skittles in front of an inn by Franz Josef Textor, c. 1727-1741
• Bowling at an inn by Jan Josef Horemans, c. 1729-1760
• The Enraged Vixen of a Wife, or The Play of Skittles by Francis Hayman, c. 1735-1745
• Lustig und frölich inß gemein from the album of Johann Franz Hörmannsperger, 1736
• Gentlemen Playing Skittles by Balthasar Nebot, 1740
• Children at play in a garden, Augsburg, c. 1751-1800
• Building houses with cards, 1764
• Saint Monday in the Afternoon, or All Nine and Swallow the Bowl, 1770s
• Four Corners, Played at the Swan, Chelſea, 1771
• Sir William Pepperrell and his family by John Singleton Copley, 1778
• Miss Tipapin Going for All Nine, 1779
• The Laws of the Game of Dutch-Pins, 1787
• Rules and Instructions for Playing at Skittles By a Society of Gentlemen, 1786
• Reformation, or Their Worships Grubbing Up a Skittle Ground, 1787
• A game of skittles at the Adam and Eve Tea Gardens at St. Pancras, north London by Thomas Rowlandson, 1790
• Ziet hier wat Jonge Knepen ſpelen, 1806