Painting of a family game of checkers (Louis-Léopold Boilly)
Painting of a family game of checkers (“jeu des dames”), Louis-Léopold Boilly [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
From etymonline.com: “draughts (n.)British name for the tabletop game that in U.S. is checkers, c. 1400, from draught, perhaps because the pieces are “dragged” over the board in moves. Earlier it is recorded as jeu de dames (late 14c.).”
~*~*~
While Mr. and Mrs. Bingley settled in to play draughts, Lorcan was given the privilege to play fox and geese with Kitty. It would have been a wonderful way to get to speak to her in hushed tones had not his annoying and ever-present cousin been at his elbow instructing him about which was an excellent move and which was a daft one.
Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).
View all posts by Leenie Brown
6 thoughts on “Painting of a family game of checkers (Louis-Léopold Boilly)”
Grrr! I want to reach over and pinch the nose of the cousin. Perhaps grab him by the ear and drag him from the room. Then Lorcan could beat him senseless. But, no. We have to be civilized. Grrr!
That picture is lovely. The dog is growling at that cat. Is it near his bone? I can’t see clearly enough to be sure. However, the cat’s eyes are huge and they are on the dog. LOL!! The father still has his glove on while holding the other. Either he is about to leave or has just returned. But, he is giving time to playing with his daughters. Just lovely.
I’m not sure what has the dog growling, but he does not look pleased with the cat at all. I love the way that little one is standing there next to her sister paying such close attention to the game. I also like that the father appears to have just stopped his day to play with his daughter. 🙂
That cousin is going to actually do a tiny bit of good in this chapter — tiny, but still a mark on the good side. So we’ll let him hang around unscathed a bit longer. LOL
I like the picture and the excerpt.
I’m glad you do!
When I saw this I immediately thought ‘something’s ringing a bell here’ with that painting. The painting is lovely, the details are fun to study. I love the infant in Mama’s lap, while she has her arm resting on the back of his chair. Such a relaxed, quiet family grouping.
The ‘something ringing a bell’ was that I’d seen another of his paintings in real life in a museum in Dallas-Ft. Worth about 3 years ago, not remembering the name of the artist. That one was; The Geography Lesson. I remember looking at it for a very long time because it was painted during the Regency era. And because of the subject, and expressions of the subjects. That section of the museum wasn’t the focus of our trip, another exhibit was. But the section that this included The Geography Lesson also included a number of Regency Era paintings, and oh, I was in love! Well, in the case of Boilly it was considered Empire since he was French.
Oh! That’s a lovely painting! I looked it up, and I can see why you would look at it for a very long time. Thanks for sharing that. It, too, is a very relaxed family life sort of painting, and I like that since it was painted during that time, it gives us a kind of snapshot of what some family life might have been like. Love it!
Grrr! I want to reach over and pinch the nose of the cousin. Perhaps grab him by the ear and drag him from the room. Then Lorcan could beat him senseless. But, no. We have to be civilized. Grrr!
That picture is lovely. The dog is growling at that cat. Is it near his bone? I can’t see clearly enough to be sure. However, the cat’s eyes are huge and they are on the dog. LOL!! The father still has his glove on while holding the other. Either he is about to leave or has just returned. But, he is giving time to playing with his daughters. Just lovely.
I’m not sure what has the dog growling, but he does not look pleased with the cat at all. I love the way that little one is standing there next to her sister paying such close attention to the game. I also like that the father appears to have just stopped his day to play with his daughter. 🙂
That cousin is going to actually do a tiny bit of good in this chapter — tiny, but still a mark on the good side. So we’ll let him hang around unscathed a bit longer. LOL
I like the picture and the excerpt.
I’m glad you do!
When I saw this I immediately thought ‘something’s ringing a bell here’ with that painting. The painting is lovely, the details are fun to study. I love the infant in Mama’s lap, while she has her arm resting on the back of his chair. Such a relaxed, quiet family grouping.
The ‘something ringing a bell’ was that I’d seen another of his paintings in real life in a museum in Dallas-Ft. Worth about 3 years ago, not remembering the name of the artist. That one was; The Geography Lesson. I remember looking at it for a very long time because it was painted during the Regency era. And because of the subject, and expressions of the subjects. That section of the museum wasn’t the focus of our trip, another exhibit was. But the section that this included The Geography Lesson also included a number of Regency Era paintings, and oh, I was in love! Well, in the case of Boilly it was considered Empire since he was French.
Oh! That’s a lovely painting! I looked it up, and I can see why you would look at it for a very long time. Thanks for sharing that. It, too, is a very relaxed family life sort of painting, and I like that since it was painted during that time, it gives us a kind of snapshot of what some family life might have been like. Love it!