The Game of Chinese Checkers
Framed: 15 x 12 inches (38.1 x 30.48 cm)
Old Master Drawings, Colnaghi, London, April 6–May 14, 1948, no. 32, as A Woman and Child, in the Chinese Style.
Kansas City Collects, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 22–February 28, 1965, no. 70.
Cathay Invoked: Chinoiserie, A Celestial Empire in the West, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June 10–July 31, 1966, no. 1, as Drawing: “Le Jeu d’échecs chinois.”
Possibly Husar, by 1765;
Possibly sold at his sale, Une Belle Collection de Desseins et Estampes de Choix, des Meilleurs Maistres, Italiens, Flamans, et François par F. Basan, Graveur Paris, December 10, 1765, lot 258, as Dix petits Sujets Chinois à la sanguine, 1765 [1];
With P. & D. Colnaghi, London, by April 6, 1948 [2];
Helen Ward Beals (1891–1983), Kansas City, MO, by October 4, 1966–1983 [3];
Probably by descent to her son, David T. Beals III (1915–1987), Mission Hills, KS, 1983–1987;
Inherited by his wife, Jeanne McCray Beals (1933–2005), Fairway, KS, 1987–2005;
Her bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2006.
NOTES:
[1] The rest of the description from the sales catalogue says, “par le même [Boucher], qui seront vendus en plusieurs lots, ils ont été gravés de la même grandeur sur des écransˮ (by the same [Boucher], which are to be sold in several lots; they were engraved in the same size on the screens).
[2] The drawing featured in Old Master Drawings at Colnaghi, London, April 6–May 14, 1948, as no. 32. The drawing was for sale at this exhibition.
[3] “Mrs. David T. Beals, Kansas City, Missouri,” lent the drawing to the exhibition Cathay Invoked: Chinoiserie; A Celestial Empire in the West in June 1966. Jeanne McCray did not marry David T. Beals III until later, so this must refer to Helen Ward Beals, wife of David T. Beals II.
Possibly Catalogue d’une Belle Collection de Desseins et Estampes de Choix, des Meilleurs Maistres, Italiens, Flamans, et François par F. Basan, Graveur (Paris: De Lormel, December 10, 1765), 26, as Dix petits Sujets Chinois à la sanguine.
André Michel, François Boucher (part 1), and L[ouis] Soullié and Ch. Masson, Catalogue Raisonné de l’Œuvre Peint et Dessiné de François Boucher (part 2) (1886; Paris: H. Piazza et Cie, 1906), 1:44n1, 2:137, 167. as le Jeu d’échec chinois.
Possibly Henry-René d’Allemagne, Musée rétrospectif de la classe 100, jeux, à l'Exposition universelle internationale de 1900, à Paris, vol. 2 (Saint-Cloud: Imprimerie Bélin frères, 1903), 46.
Possibly Henry-René d’Allemagne, Récréations et passe-temps (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1906), 46.
Exhibition of Old Master Drawings, exh. cat. (London: P. and D. Colnaghi, 1948), unpaginated, as A Woman and Child, in the Chinese Style.
Kansas City Collects, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: The Gallery, 1965), no. 70, p. 11.
Cathay Invoked: Chinoiserie, A Celestial Empire in the West, exh. cat. (San Francisco: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1966), unpaginated, (repro.), as Drawing: “Le Jeu d’échecs chinois.”
Possibly Alexandre Ananoff, L’œuvre dessiné de François Boucher (1703–1770), Catalogue Raisonné (Paris : F. de Nobele, 1966), 1:257 under no. 1005.
Alexandre Ananoff and Daniel Wildenstein, François Boucher (Lausanne: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1976), 1:21, (repro.), as Le Jeu d’Eschets chinois.
Alastair Laing, The Drawings of François Boucher, exh. cat. (New York: American Federation of Arts, 2003), 128, 237 under no 43n2.
Maîtres Anciens (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Aguttes, December 6, 2022), 74, (repro.), as Première étude pour le Jeu d’échets chinois.
