NEW SITE LOCATION : THE WHIST MARKERS MUSEUM

It all began for me around 1995 when, while visiting a flea market, I discovered this small and strange object. I was far from imaging that it could be declined in as many different forms, matters and colors ...

The game of Whist
Whist is a very old playing cards game that appeared in England during the 17th century. One finds traces of this game in the English literature as soon as 1621, but it is from 1742, with the publication of "A short treatise on the game of Whist" of Edmond Hoyle that the game really begins to become popular in England. Little by little, the "madness" for the Whist crosses the channel to arrive in the continent, and in particular in France. Whist is played by everyone from Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon, Queen Victoria to ... Phileas Fogg ! A lot of treaties appear during the 19th century, and the game arrives in the USA where it quickly becomes a hudge success. The best studies on the game appear in the years 1860-1880 with in particular Cavendish and William Pole. But its already too late, and the game dissapears at the beginning of the 20th century after it gave birth to a new game : the bridge.

The Whist Marker
The Whist Marker is the object that was used to count the points at the game of Whist. We will not describe here the rules of the game of Whist, nor the way to count the points at this game, but we have to point out that its scoring system evoluted with the years :
- until approximately the beginning of the 19th century, the winning team was the first to win 2 games of 10 points (Long Whist)
- After the beginning of the 19th century, the winning team was the first to win 2 games of 5 points (Short Whist)

Of course, Whist Markers also followed this scoring system evolution, which provide us with such a Whist Markers diversity ...

At the end of the 19^th century, there was a growing passion for Japanese art, especially in England. This was the Meiji era in Japan (1868 – 1912) and Japanese artwork export drastically increased during this period.

Whist markers were not the exception. They are called Shibayama Whist Marker from the name of the technic used. Shibayama lacquer has been invented in Chiba just before the Meiji era by Senzo Onogi (who later changed his name to Senzo Shibayama) : small elaborated pieces of noble materials (semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell) are inlaid into lacquered wooden or even metal or ivory bases.

 According to Yumiko who did an impressive study about Japanese Export Furniture all the motifs on the Whist Markers are symbols indicating autumn season : plants such as bellflower, pauwlonia and insects which chirp during this period (crickets, grasshoppers...). They are used as season words in Japanese poetry, called " haiku ". Autumn is a Japanese favorite season and has always been a popular topic depicted on works of art. The exception is a butterfly which symbolizes spring, probably included there simply because it’s pretty and decorative (but which Westerners could have known about that in 1900 ?).

 It has to be noticed that Shibayama items were only produced for export as they were considered as excessively ornemental by most Japanese. With the success of Shibayama items, a lot of imitations appeared which can explain the difference of quality sometimes found between pieces.

Hoyles Scoring Method

One of the first kind of Long Whist Marker was composed of a box containing four tokens. The position of the tokens on the table, known as Hoyles Scoring Method, indicated the number of points :

To summarize, tokens horizontally aligned each counts for 1 point. One token over the others counts for 3 points, one token under the others counts for 5 points.