Pope Joan. by (GAME).

Lacquered circular wooden game board (diameter 330 mm) with central compartment and lid, without the original revolving base and. Black lacquer with lettering and ornament in gold and colours, hand-painted chinoiserie motifs. The colours quite worn and chipped with an expected degree of soiling. Original printed green label ‘Dunkartons Repository – For Fancy Articles. – 452 Strand, Wholesale and Retail’ partly effaced.

A Regency counter or ‘staking’ board with original printed green label ‘Dunkartons Repository – For Fancy Articles. – 452 Strand, Wholesale and Retail’. Pope Joan was a card game popular in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the name a corruption of the French Nain jaune, the original form of the game. This example would originally have been mounted on a wooden spindle and stand (not now present) to allow it to revolve freely.
This example was offered by Dunkarton’s Repository, a fashionable shop operated by Mary Dunkarton and her husband, the notable mezzotint engraver Robert Dunkarton, at 452 Strand. Mary Dunkarton was recorded at this address as a milliner and haberdasher between 1781 and 1809, and the address in appears in the imprint of Dunakerton’s prints around the year 1810.
Though widely played before 1800 its first published rules appeared in Hoyle’s Games (edition of 1814), with the ‘staking board’ having eight compartments labelled: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Game, Pope, Matrimony and Intrigue. Each player receives a number of counters, or chips, whose value is determined by the players involved in the game. The 8 of diamonds is then removed from the pack to form a ‘stop sequence’. The aim of the game is to run out of cards before anyone else. The game features in Humphreys’ famous satirical print of 1796, ‘Lady Godina’s Rout’ depicting the Lady Georgiana Gordon, Duchess of Bedford at play in a state of dishabillée, while Dickens later portrays it as an innocuous family parlour game in the Pickwick Papers.