[The New Game of the Jew]. Board-game with central image depicting the Jew as peddler - a well known 18th and early 19th century English artistic convention.

(ANGLO-JUDAICA).

England, c. 1816

Watercolor and gold leaf on paper, crosshatched border line reveals gold tooling, numerals gold tipped. Backed by a marbled board of which two partially legible old labels remain; one stating “done by William Chapman… Born February 5, 1797… died about 1860.” A second label: “1816… W. Chapman… born 17… died about 1838.”

Beginning in 1807 printed versions of “The New Game of the Jew” were offered for sale in England. All examples display an Oriental Jew his head covered in a turban, seated at a table with bags of gold coins and a numeral 7 by his side. In the present remarkable version, the artist chose to depict what he and the rest of English society saw as “the Jew they knew,” that of the European-Jewish peddler, offering his inexpensive trinkets and wares. Obviously a contradiction arises, as while the figure is pointing to what appears to be gold coins, he is, in the end, still a humble peddler, a far cry from the standard image, that of the disdained moneylender. For a strikingly similar depiction of a Jewish peddler in England, see A. Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume, p. 122. See also B. Nagar, Jewish Pedlars and Hawkers 1740 – 1940 (1992).