The painting
Le Jeu de Dames (The Game of Draughts) is a famous painting, oil on canvas, which was created by the French artist Louis-Léopold Boilly (5 July 1761 – 4 January 1845) in around 1803. It shows a game of International Draughts (10x10) in progress. It also shows the Paris idea, under strong neoclassical fashion influences in the years around 1800, of attire for females of different ages. On the floor, the family dog and cat don't seem to be getting along.
Louis-Léopold Boilly was a gifted creator of popular portrait paintings, he also produced a vast number of genre paintings vividly documenting French middle-class social life. His life and work spanned the eras of monarchical France, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy.
See also[]
- Jeux de dames au café Lamblin au Palais-Royal, another painting by Louis-Léopold Boilly