Game piece with two noblemen in profile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This piece originally belonged to a much larger set of counters, made to be used in courtly pastimes such as backgammon and the goose game, on a board like that displayed nearby. Exceedingly fine workmanship singles out this game piece as one made for the highest end of the market: the slight difference in color between the uppermost boxwood and the base of walnut would have been more marked when new and may well have identified the player, with the woods inverted on the opponent’s counters. The detailed design of two portrait-like overlapping heads in profile is particularly unusual.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art