Mother of pearl gaming counters, fashioned from the nacre of large oyster shells, were a commodity of the The China Trade between 1700 and 1840. They were used for scoring and bidding in card games such as Ombre, Quadrille and Pope Joan. The trade in mother of pearl gaming counters continued until around 1840, when whist, scored on the familiar board with pegs, became the most popular card game in the Western world. The earliest counter sets, from around 1720 to 1760, included fish-shaped counters such as these.
A shoal of seventeen eighteenth century Chinese mother-o-pearl gaming counters, as seen in our portrait of a child, https://www.walpoleantiques.com/birthday-portrait.
The largest fish measures 2.75 inches long
Item Code: 4071
£ 225
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