Loto des Fables de La Fontaine, 1860

Item — Box: CFC Lottery Games Box 1

Identifier: CFC2021.0175.1.1-24

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

The Carlson Fable Collection is a gathering of primary fable materials at Reinert Alumni Memorial Library at Creighton University. It grew out of the personal collection of fable materials gathered by Rev. Gregory Carlson, S.J. and was given to the Creighton Libraries in 1996. There are more than 10,000 books and approximately 8,000 artifacts in the collection.

From plates to stamps, from cards to whiskey decanters, from toys to posters, you'll find just about anything you can imagine here. Please explore all that is to offer here in my fables Catalogue of Objects.

This is the largest online catalog of fable related objects on the internet. Many are from Aesop's Fables but you will find La Fontaine, Velazquez and Krylov also represented in this collection.

Dates

1860

Extent

7¼" Linear Feet : Loto des Fables de LaFontaine." Twenty-four stiff 4½" x 7¼" cards using illustrations after those of J.J. Grandville. ; 4½" x 7¼"

Language of Materials

French

Additional Description

Abstract

The upper 2½" of each card is taken up with a good rendition after Grandville of an individual fable illustration over a block-print title. The lower 4¼" is taken up with La Fontaine's text and three columns of bingo-like numbers. (The middle column splits the text in cumbersome fashion.) Some cards have one or two footnotes on difficult or antiquated vocabulary. One of the twenty-four cards is outside the pattern. Its upper portion gives the game's title around a bust of La Fontaine, supported by a cabinet. At the center of this cabinet, which is flanked by a fox and a cat, stands "Regle." This card tells us that this "new" game differs from the old one only in its vertical rather than horizontal columns. Apparently, one agrees on the price of each card and pays for his/her cards. Then number-balls are drawn from a sack and called out. For a win, one needs to cover the five numbers in any one column. Unfortunately, there is no real connection between the fables and the game…. I remember seeing this gam--I cannot remember where--at a price I could not dream of. I think my favorite fable-collector picked up that copy. I am delighted to find this other copy now!