Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

The game battledore and shuttlecock – named after the racquet and projectile used in it – is a predecessor of badminton, named after the house where the game seems first to have been played in England in the middle of the nineteenth century. This delightful depiction of one of the pleasures of Punchinello’s childhood is similar to one representing a birthday party, now at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island (inv. 1987.017; see Gealt, op. cit., 1986, no. 82): included in both drawings are the same table, dogs, and company, including the woman with hat seen here framing the composition at right. Adelheid Gealt titled a sheet also in Providence ‘The badminton victory’ as it includes two battledores and a shuttlecock lying on the floor (op. cit., 1986, no. 18). The lower number (24) at upper left, however, probably indicates it precedes the present sheet in the storyline.