Painted and Inlaid Game Board
This gameboard is painted on both sides with an eight by eight grid on one side for chess (the side on display) or draughts and a backgammon table on the other side. Both chess and backgammon were highly popular board games in the Islamic world and were even the subject of a Persian text composed in the ninth century, Wizarishn i catrang ud nihishn i new-ardashir (Explanation of Chess and the Invention of Backgammon). This late seventeenth-century board is finely executed with a symmetrical arabesque design on one set of squares and a flowering plant on the alternate squares. The flowering plants are carefully painted, and eight different flower varieties can be identified. The board was probably painted, varnished, and gilded over a wooden framework by a craftsman who had been trained to adorn bindings for manuscripts.
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