Date: 1890s
Size: 9.5 x 5.75 inches
About The Poster: This wonderful piece of 1890's ephemera came to me from a woman who is as fascinated by old paper as I am. The two of us spent hours staring at what are the paper prints of a military-type of board game issued in France - a game where there once appears to have been a key to who the figures were but that was lost centuries ago... the faces and characters are in and of themselves fairly fascinating and taken as a group these three pieces are a hoot, as well as an incredible historical find. In looking up board games and their history I came across a blog entry by someone which seemed to confirm some of what I had been thinking.
To wit: " ...the prints seem to me to contain a wealth of indirect evidence about things like customs and social status and attitudes to education and maybe a whole lot more besides... it's perhaps quite logical to most people and second nature to historians.
When you look closely at the figures you can indeed see much of the social structure of French society - highbrow and lowbrow, just about everything is illustrated in these wonderful, unlined pieces. Piece measures 9.5 x 5.75 inches and is framed (15 x 13 inches final)