The Venus Throw

I promised you a competition earlier in the year!

I think the time has come for us to have a go!

It’s going to be quite simple, but quite difficult!

The prize will be:

<FANFARE>

One of my HAND PAINTED, UNIQUE, NEVER TO BE REPEATED historic miniature dummy board figures, worth over £200!

I have decided that as most people, it seems, favour the Georgian era, for their dollshouse, I will give as a prize one of my Georgian Gainsborough dummy boards.

I have said it many times on this blog but….. it was the custom in the late 18th and the 19th century for artists to reproduce famous paintings as dummy boards. Sometimes they were copied perfectly. Sometimes they had the face of another person substituted for that which the original artist painted.

Here is perhaps the most famous example.

Rembrandt's Maria Tripp as a full sized dummy board. 5 ft. 19th c.

And the original on which it was based.

The original half portrait of Maria Tripp.

This was quite the thing to do with Thomas Gainsborough’s work and there are a few dummy boards of his lovely portraits about.

I have painted four of his portraits as mini figures and am going to offer one of them as the prize in my, last, competition. Two that are real figures and two that aren’t.

Two sisters, not a real board but one I thought would make a lovely set of figures. And I was right.

Gentleman with greyhound... (and a friend) -a real 19th c. dummy board

Lady Sheffield..a famous real 19th c. figure. ( And her friend, Hogarth's pug)

The Grand Hall with Lady with Ostritch Feather in the foreground. ( The other three can be seen in the background.)

The last figure, not a real dummy board, leans on a pillar and I will be offering this too in the prize. You choose.

THE QUESTION YOU MUST ANSWER to win one of these figures.

What is the name of the only absolutely proven, known ENGLISH  historic dummy board?

Answers to me by December 12th please. E mail me at sue@pastmastery.com

If I have more than one correct answer I will put names in a hat and get Stephen to draw one out. I’ll notify you by e mail and you will feature on the blog, of course.

So get your thinking caps on.

To reiterate…

The prize consists of one HAND PAINTED miniature dummy board bearing the PastMastery seal, in a box with an explanatory leaflet. Choose from:

1. Lady Sheffield

2. Gentleman with greyhound

3. Lady with Ostrich feather fan and pillar.

4. Two sisters with dog

And the Venus Throw?

The Romans played a  dice game with four knucklebones. The Venus throw happened when each dice landed on a different side. It was the highest  throw you could have and so, considered the luckiest. It was also considered the most scary, for whole livelihoods, fortunes and estates could be gambled away on it! People too I believe.

I don’t expect you to gamble away your servant or wife though…never fear!

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