A Louis XVI rosewood tric-trac games table signed J.POTARANGE et JME

The rectangular top with moulded edge is lined with a gilt-tooled red leather writing surface and a green woollen fabric to the reverse. It is enclosing an ivory, ebony, and green-stained horn compartment, fitted for backgammon, the frieze fitted two drawers, on four square tapering legs with gilt bronze rings and cappings, with fifteen boxwood counters, fifteen ebonised boxwood counters, two silvered candlesticks, four dices and two tooled and gilt leather dice cups.

Jean Hoffenrichler dit Potarange, was the great Parisian specialist of backgammon tables, to which he devoted his art almost exclusively.

Born in Germany, he settled in Paris in the early 1750s, and first worked as a free worker in the rue du faubourg Saint Antoine “opposite rue Traversière”. He was master in 1767, registered at Chatelet on October 5, and continued his activity at the same address, until the closing of his workshop in 1782. His game tables manufactured during the reign of Louis XVI, are the more often executed according to the design of the one we present, with a straight freize on fine sheathed feet, and differ only by the use of different wood veneers: mahogany, satin or rosewood, as well as by their ormolu mounts.
Here the rosewood, with its blond reflections, allows the realization of a piece of furniture with clear lines and of a very great elegance.