Stories behind games are little more than child’s play
SUMMERTIME means it is playtime for children – and sometimes for us adults too.
At The Wilson, we have a whole host of fun activities for children throughout the school holiday as part of the Summer of Play.
Play can be found among our collections, too.
In our familyfriendly WOW Gallery you can find a group of young boys at play in a garden on this 17th century Chinese porcelain basin.
Some of the boys are dancing, one of them has a pet crab on a lead, one holds a flower lantern and another a helmet.
They are accompanied by a smiling woman holding a fan.
We can get clues about the kind of things boys played with at this time from this and other pieces, but sometimes the playthings are symbolic.
The crab, for example, is an auspicious symbol, meaning first – perhaps meaning coming first in the important civil service examinations.
The helmet may mean that this boy might grow up to be an important soldier.
The lotus blossom symbolises long life and honour, so shows more hopes for the boy who holds it.
These wealthy Chinese children seem to have had lots of toys.
Other pieces show boys riding hobby horses, playing with puppets, spinning tops and instruments.
They are also shown playing a kind of football, cuju, a game developed in China in the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220AD), skipping or jumping the white wheel, a kind of blind man’s bluff, and hide and seek.
Children’s games seem to be the same everywhere.
Pieces like this do show a joyful celebration of the fun of childhood, but there are deeper meanings.
These pictures of playing boys are often called the 100 sons motif and relate to the story of King Wen, the legendary father of the founder of the Zhou dynasty (around 1046 to 256 BC) who had 24 wives and 99 sons.
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One day he found an abandoned baby during a thunderstorm and adopted him to make the number of sons up to a round 100.
The decoration became popular during the Song dynasty (960 AD to 1279 AD) and continued long past the making of this basin.
The images of boys playing were often used on wedding gifts such as quilts for the marriage bed, as well as furniture and porcelain.
They represent a wish for prosperity and a large family with many children who can carry on the family line.
It is very sad girls are not depicted on these pieces – only boys were deemed important for carrying on the family line and bringing prosperity – but I very much hope girls got to actually play like the little boys n the 17th century.
You can also see some European toys and games in the Star Object display in the exhibition A Window into The Wilson, many of which belonged to the Jefferson family who ran the post office in Charlton Kings.
If you and your family fancy investigating some of our vintage toy collections, come along to a free fun family workshop on Tuesday, August 21, from 10.30am–12:30pm, to explore toys from the Victorian period to the 1950s and get to make a toy to take home.
Our World of Wonders holiday trail is running throughout August and will take you on a journey around the museum and across the world, and you can find out about the fascinating and curious objects on display on our Discovery Tours, Tuesdays and Fridays at 3.15pm.