Black lacquered wood “tric-trac” game table

Black lacquered wood “tric-trac” game table on four slender curved legs. The waistband is cut out in the shape of a crossbow and opens with two drawers concealed on the sides. The removable top features a black-and-white checkerboard on one side and a leather-wrapped writing case on the other. The top reveals a tric-trac game inlaid with bone and green-tinted bone. The game table is adorned with gilded and chased bronze sabots and falls decorated with busts of bearded men draped in the antique style.
Louis XV period
Restoration
H. 74 x W. 75.5 x D. 56 cm

In his treatise on carpentry furniture, cabinetmaker Roubo mentions that game tables “are sometimes made of ebony or other precious woods” (Roubo). It's interesting to note that Roubo explicitly mentions ebony, while remaining evasive about the nature of other woods.

In fact, throughout the 18th century, game tables were frequently built in dark wood. During the Regency period, black wood (ebony and blackened wood) was still widely used; amaranth and other exotic woods also began to make their mark, but black wood, whose aesthetics are reminiscent of ebony, a luxurious material, remains an unchallenged material in the creation of game tables. The Musée de Cluny conserves one of the oldest known game boxes, dating from the end of the 15th century: it already displays the aesthetics that remained the rule throughout the 18th century: the general structure is in ebony, and the game markings (checkerboard, tric-trac tongues) are already in alternating bone and green-tinted wood.

Gambling was a social activity in the 18th century, and this type of furniture was frequently found in interiors. Various typologies were developed, from triangular and square to octagonal (cf. Roubo). Our table is called a “chessboard table” because of the checkerboard top that covers the tric-trac pedestals.