18th Century Toys

Last updated: Sep 17, 2025

This page serves as a catch-all for most toys & playthings. (Separate pages have been set up for board games and other games, bubble-blowing, playing-cards, infants’ rattles, kites, and dolls and their accoutrements.)

Rather than set up separate sections for artifacts and depictions, the items here have been grouped by types of toys & playthings.

Carts and wagons

These are different from go-carts, which Johnson defines as “a machine in which children are incloſed to teach them to walk, and which they puſh forward without danger of falling.”

• The Four Ages of Man: Childhood by Nicolas Lancret, by 1735
• The Graham children by William Hogarth, 1742
• Scenes of family life by Johann Peter Wolff, c. 1746-1755
• A family group on a terrace in a garden by Arthur Devis, 1749
• A group portrait of three of the children of Peter and Mary Du Cane by Arthur Devis
• Portrait of two children with a goat cart
• The Grymes Children, c. 1750-1755
• Kinderspiel, c. 1751-1772
• Children at play in Des Elementarbuchs für die Jugend illustrated by Daniel Chodowiecki, 1770
• A View of the Prince’s House at Kew by Paul Sandby, 1776
• The three youngest daughters of George III by John Singleton Copley
• The Wedgwood Family by George Stubbs, 1780
• Mr. Deputy Dumpling and Family Enjoying a Summer Afternoon, 1781
• The Hunter Blair Family by David Allan, 1785
• Het meest, ô Jeugdt! dat gy hier ziet, Is Kinderſpel

Hoops

• Interior with a woman and a boy by Frans van Mieris the Younger
• De Hoepel by Jan Luyken, 1712
• Covent Garden Market with fruit sellers by Balthasar Nebot, c. 1737
• Scenes of family life by Johann Peter Wolff, c. 1746-1755
• Pretty little toys for Girls and Boys by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
• Castle Hill with the Henry III Tower and the Mary Tudor Tower seen from the south by Paul Sandby, c. 1765
• Boy with a hoop by Martin Drölling, c. 1765-1768
• View of the Round and Devil’s Towers, Windsor Castle by Paul Sandby, c. 1770
• Gezicht van de Nieuwe Koren-Beurs, tot Amsterdam, c. 1770-1783
• Standing man with a child with a hoop, c. 1777-1779
• Cheerful Learning by Jacobus Buys, c. 1778-1779
• Group Portrait of the James Family, c. 1780
• Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, 1789
• Joseph de Lautour by Richard Crosse, 1793
• Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College by William Blake, c. 1797-1798
• Master Paget by John Hoppner
• Het meest, ô Jeugdt! dat gy hier ziet, Is Kinderſpel
• A nurse with three children by Paul Sandby, c. 1800
• Henry John Lambert by Henri-Pierre Danloux, 1800
• Ziet hier wat Jonge Knepen ſpelen, 1806
• A beggar, two women and two children in a street by Jan Jacob Bijlaert
• Binstead Parsonage, Isle of Wight by John Nixon
• Boy with a hoop by Abraham van Strij

Wheeled horse pull-toys

Thanks to Paul Dickfoss for several suggestions here.

• Portrait miniature of Richard Whitmore aged 3 by Bernard Lens, 1718
• Rijksmuseum BK-14913-M, a miniature silver wagon with two horses, made by Willem van Strant, c. 1727-1742
• Morning coffee by François Boucher, 1739
• Le Colleur d’affiche by Étienne Jeaurat, c. 1740
• Catherine-Félicité and Adélaïde Berthelin de Neuville by Carle van Loo, 1743
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• A group of ladies gathered at a table with a fortune teller by William Jones
• The princess’s toys
• Kinderspiel, c. 1751-1772
• Pieter Alexander van Boetzelaer by Pierre Frédéric de la Croix, 1760
• Mamma Giving Toys, c. 1760-1765
• Saint Nicholas Day in the Imperial Family of Austria, 1762
• Modern Love: Discordant Matrimony, 1765
• Campegius Cornelis van der Straten by Pierre Frédéric de la Croix, 1766
• John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and His Family by Johann Zoffany, c. 1766
• Kenau Catharina Wilhelmina Gevers Deynoot and Willem Theodore Gevers Deynoot by Isaac Lodewijk la Fargue van Nieuwland, 1769
• Die Ernährung, Verpflegung der Kinder in Des Elementarbuchs für die Jugend, illustration by Daniel Chodowiecki, 1770
• A toy horse and cart under the table in Fürtreffeliche Bildung des Geiſtes und des Hertzens, 1773
• Maria Bezemer and Gerard Robert Castendijk by Pierre Frédéric de la Croix, 1776
• Galerie des Modes, 7e Cahier, 6e Figure, 1778: Child’s governess in the home of People of Quality.
• Portrait of a boy by Guillaume de Spinny, 1778
• Mr Trade & family or the state of ye nation, 1779
• Claas Veeckens with his family, c. 1779
• Le petit Garçon, 1780
• Hermanus Petrus te Nuys, Adriana Hakvoort, and their son Bernard Hendrik te Nuys by Isaac Lodewijk la Fargue van Nieuwland, c. 1781
• A toy horse and wagon in a portrait of an unknown family/a> by Johannes Zacharias Simon Prey
• Hendrik Hoogers with his family, and Jan Broesterhuijsen by Hendrik Hoogers, 1783
• Jantje and Bietja by Jan Brandes, 1784
• Hermanus Petrus te Nuys, Adriana Hakvoort, and their son Bernard Hendrik te Nuys by Isaac Lodewijk la Fargue van Nieuwland, c. 1781
• A wheeled toy horse and wagon in Visit to the child at nurse by George Morland, c. 1788
• The Tea Garden by George Morland
• A pull-toy carriage with Mrs. Benjamin Tallmadge and son Henry Floyd and daughter Maria Jones by Ralph Earl, 1790
• Portrait of a young boy with his toys
• Family portrait by Rienk Jelgerhuis, c. 1795-1798
• The Visit Return’d To the Father in the Country, 1796
• Aernout van Beeftingh, his wife Jacoba Maria Boon and their children by Nicolaes Muys, 1797
• Geurt van den Boogaard, Cornelia Antonia Bonte, and their children by Rienk Jelgerhuis, c. 1797
• Bernardus Warnerus Roessing, Agatha Maria in den Bosch, and their children by Rienk Jelgerhuis, 1797
• Willem Anne Schimmelpenninck van der Oye by Johann Julius Heinsius, c. 1800-1805
• Herzog Friedrich Emil August von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderborg-Augustenburg, gen. Prinz von Noer by Jens Juel, 1802
• José Costa y Bonells, called Pepito by Goya, c. 1810

Rocking horses

• Louis Philippe Joseph by François Boucher, c. 1750; is the kitten in his lap a toy, too?
• More of a wheeled toy: Children playing with a hobby horse by Joseph Francis Nollekens, c. 1741-1747
• Infants and their wooden horse, 1756
• Kinderspiel, c. 1751-1772
• Two children with a toy horse by Georg Friedrich Weitsch
• Willem Borski by Martinus Houtman, 1767
• Children at play in Des Elementarbuchs für die Jugend illustrated by Daniel Chodowiecki, 1770
• The Sick Child by Jacobus Buys, c. 1778-1779
• Master Billy’s hobby-horse, or his triumphal entry into Downing Street, 1784
• Women ironing, c. 1786-1800
• The First Hobby-Horse by John Condé, 1792
• The children of Hendrik Gijsbert Knoops by Rienk Jelgerhuis, 1798
• A boy and his rocking-horse by Traugott Georgi, c. 1798-1838
• Ziet hier wat Jonge Knepen ſpelen, 1806

Stick-horses

• Sophie Eleonore von Sachsen with her grandsons by Johann Spilberg, 1667
• Het Houte Stokpaard by Jan Luyken, 1712
• La famille en promenade by Philip Mercier, 1725
• The Golden Age by Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
• Scenes of family life by Johann Peter Wolff, c. 1746-1755
• The children of Jan Maximiliaan van Tuyll van Serooskerken and Ursulina Christina Reiniera van Reede, c. 1746-1769
• Das Stecken-Pfert, die Dock und andtre Spiel-wercks-Sachen …, c. 1750
• Kinderspiel, c. 1751-1772
• Jacobus Ursinus Grevenstein by Adriaen Thim
• Christian August Graf zu Solms-Laubach with his grandson Friedrich Wilhelm Fürst zu Solms-Braunfels by Anton Wilhelm Tischbein, 1762
• Kitchen interior with a young woman cleaning fish and a boy with a hobby horse by Abraham Hendrik van Beesten, 1769
• Children at play in Des Elementarbuchs für die Jugend illustrated by Daniel Chodowiecki, 1770
• Anna Catharina Pichot and her younger brother by Pierre Frédéric de la Croix, 1775
• Boy on a hobby-horse, Japan, 1786
• The family of Berend Hendrik Bentinck, c. 1790
• Portrait of an unknown boy with a stick horse, last quarter of the 18th century
• Milkmaids in St. James’s Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond by Benjamin West, c. 1801
• Ziet hier wat Jonge Knepen ſpelen, 1806

Kites

I’ve moved 18th century kites to their own linkspage.

Puppets and puppet shows

Pantin is discussed on a separate page.

• Scene from commedia dell’arte
• Venetian marionettes: RC-B-06147, RC-B-06133
• Don Quixote destroys the puppets by Charles-Antoine Coypel, c. 1714-1734
• Marionette theater with two settings and twelve puppets, Italy, c. 1734
• Foire de Venise, 1736
• The parlor of the San Zaccaria Convent by Francesco Guardi, c. 1745-1750
• A pantin, with the separate parts of body, head, arms and legs designed to be cut out and assembled to form a puppet, c. 1750
• The Charlatan by Pietro Longhi, 1757
• I Burattini, 1760-1770
• Making shadow-puppets, L’Origine de la Peinture de les Portraits à la Mode, c. 1770-1780
• Punch and the jugglers, 1783
• Punch’s puppet shew, 1795
• Harry Rowe, 1798
• Portrait of a little boy holding a puppet (a marionette with a Punch-like belly)
• A Punch and Judy Show by Thomas Rowlandson
• Puppet show in a square by Nicolas Antoine Taunay

Tops

• The Laundress by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1733
• Auguste Gabriel Godefroy playing with a top by Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, c. 1735
• Boy with a top by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1735
• Portrait of a boy with a spinning top by Philip Mercier, 1740
• Portrait of two boys, probably Joseph and John Joseph Nollekens by Joseph Francis Nollekens, c. 1745
• Children at play, probably the artist’s son Jacobus and daughter Maria Joanna Sophia by Joseph Francis Nollekens, 1745
• Portrait of the artist’s son as a boy by Philip Mercier, 1756
• Fürtreffeliche Bildung des Geiſtes und des Hertzens, 1773
• Le sabot (C'est ici les différents jeux des petits Polissons de Paris)
• Cheerful Learning, The Whipping Top, and The Good Example by Jacobus Buys, c. 1778-1779
• A top given to Louis-Charles de France by Pauline de Tourzel
• Little Sleeper by Martin Drölling, 1795
• Rijksmuseum BK-NM-11177-51-A, a silver top marked with six letters, Amsterdam, c. 1800/li>
• Boys Playing at Peg-top by Richard Morton Paye, c. 1800
• Ziet hier wat Jonge Knepen ſpelen, 1806
• Portrait of an unknown boy in the window of a painter’s atelier by Jacques Albert Sénave

Toy knights & soldiers

• SUR-DB6B08, a cast lead-alloy figure of a soldier on horseback found in England, probably manufactured c. 1700-1750
• Four Times of the Day: Evening, 1738
• Clay toys called the Querfurt knights, 18th century
• The Borris family by Anton Wilhelm Tischbein, c. 1770-1775
• Rijksmuseum NG-NM-3404, nine pewter toy soldiers on horseback that form a procession, c. 1775-1800

Windmills & whirligigs & pinwheels

• Les Quatres Ages de la vie humaine: L’Enfance, c. 1675-1704
• The young soldier
• De rarekiek by Willem van Mieris, 1718
• Front of a secondhand shop, c. 1734-1735
• The Golden Age by Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
• Toy windmill with horses and knight
• Das Stecken-Pfert, die Dock und andtre Spiel-wercks-Sachen &hellip, c. 1750
• pretty little toys for Girls and Boys all a half penny a piece wind mills a ha’penny a piece by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
• A lady entertaining a child of a Savoyard woman with a pinwheel by Noël Hallé
• The lacemaker, c. 1770-1800