[CHILDREN’S GAME] Voyage dans les cinq parties du monde.

Paris : Bussière, [between 1870 and 1880]. Original cartonnage box, 235 x 295 x 40 mm, the lid with hand-coloured lithographic onlay of a scene on the Amazon with printed game title above and picture caption below, along with the publisher’s imprint ‘Bussière, Ed. Paris’, framed by an embossed paper border (scattered silver fishing at margins of the lid, not affecting the superb illustration); the box houses 12 playing boards (150 x 210 mm) each with a coloured lithographic illustration and a section of a world map with accompanying printed text, which when placed together form a large dissected map of the world; two original silk pouches, one containing 90 numbered wooden pieces (as called for) and the other 23 dyed bone (or shell?) discs; aside from the loss of some of the discs, the game is complete, with the contents and box in excellent condition.

A beautifully designed mid nineteenth-century French children’s game of geographical lotto.

The map of the world is divided into a numbered grid. If the number on the wooden piece drawn from one of the pouches matches one of the numbers on a player’s section of the map, the player covers the corresponding number on the map with a bone disc. Australia is labelled as New Holland on the map. The wonderfully evocative illustrations by B. Coudert, lithographed by H. Jannin, tell the story of a journey around the world made by Alfred, an intrepid young Frenchman who visits many exotic locations on his travels. The twelve illustrations include depictions of the Niagara Falls; a bison hunt in North America; being carried in a palanquin in the Antilles; crossing a virgin forest in Brazil; a visit to a lake in Australia, where Alfred is shown with an Aboriginal guide; a reception given by a wealthy Chinese family; an encounter with a white elephant in Siam; a sandstorm in the deserts of Sudan; arrival on the banks of the Nile; making a halt at a Syrian café; Constantinople; and Alfred’s return journey from St. Petersburg in a horse-drawn coach.

All of these scenes are accompanied by brief geographical or natural history notes about the particular region they represent, as well as the relevant segment from the world map. The board illustrated with an Australian lake view presents information about Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Oceania.

This game was originally published – probably around 1860 or even earlier – by the Parisian children’s game manufacturer Jules Xavier Matenet. Matenet’s business was taken over by Marie Lenis in 1866, and she was succeeded by Bussière in 1870. Both Lenis and Bussière continued to publish Matenet’s games, and in fact one of the boards in the game offered here bears the original Matenet imprint.