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PASSE-BOULES GAME; [WAIN, Louis, in the style of]Biblio.com

Les Trois Chats

ref. 05401France: 1900. Les Trois Chats" A Delightfully Grotesque French Belle Époque Passé-Boules Carnival Game PASSÉ-BOULES GAME. Les Trois Chats. French hand-painted polychrome papier-mâché ball-toss carnival game. France ca. 1900. A remarkable surviving French passé-boules fairground game modeled as three wonderfully expressive cats arranged side by side each with a wide-open mouth forming the target through which the player was required to throw a ball. Hand-modelled and painted in polychrome papier-mâché over a wooden-supported structure measuring approximately 24 1/2 inches high × 23 5/8 inches wide × 5 7/8 inches deep 630 × 600 × 150 mm. The three feline heads are individually characterized with wonderfully exaggerated green eyes whiskers and large open mouths each approximately 2 1/2 inches 63 mm. across. The particularly splendid central gray cat wears a jaunty orange-and-blue striped hat prominently lettered "TOTO." The cats rest above three projecting differently colored receptacles - blue orange and yellow - with the respective scores "30" "50" and "20" painted beneath them. The higher-scoring central target is therefore appropriately occupied by the magnificently hatted Toto. The whole is reinforced by a simple wooden structure including boards at the base and upper portion while the projecting lower section forms the ball-catching receptacle. The reverse revealing the utilitarian construction of what was intended as a working fairground amusement survives substantially intact. The photographs also reveal the wonderfully irregular hand-modeled surfaces and surviving original polychrome decoration that give the three cats their extraordinary personalities. A remarkable survival of a French passé-boules carnival game from the Belle Époque. Passé-boules - literally games in which a ball was passed or thrown through an opening - were a familiar feature of French fêtes foraines and popular entertainments during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Targets frequently took the form of grotesque or comic human and animal heads their exaggerated open mouths providing the aperture through which the player attempted to propel a small ball. Points were awarded according to the successful target as demonstrated here by the painted scores beneath the three cats. The present example is particularly appealing for its three anthropomorphic feline characters. Their exaggerated expressions brilliant green eyes and distinctly individual personalities inevitably recall the celebrated comic cats of Louis Wain 1860-1939. No attribution to Wain is intended but the comparison places the game delightfully within the wider late-Victorian and Edwardian fascination with humorous humanized cats. Unlike printed or manufactured toys intended for domestic use fairground games were working objects subjected to repeated handling impact transportation and exposure. Consequently early papier-mâché examples surviving substantially complete are inherently scarce. The survival here of the three original sculptural targets their painted decoration numbered scoring system and integral ball receptacle makes Les Trois Chats an unusually evocative piece of French popular entertainment. Its appeal lies equally as a folk-art sculpture fairground artifact and piece of feline whimsy: three gloriously eccentric cats who have apparently spent more than a century waiting for someone to throw a ball into their mouths. Provenance: Acquired in Paris directly from the family of the former owner by whom it was said to have descended from a grandparent who acquired the game around the turn of the twentieth century. France: , 1900 unknown