Bagatelle - An Evolution lecture at the Field House Museum 2022-08-16

I am delighted to share with you this lecture by James Masters, as given for the Field House Museum (St. Louis, MO, USA) on the history of bagatelle.  

The lecture can be viewed and downloaded on archive.org!

also on youtube:

The lecture was given over Zoom, which ended up being quite ideal since it was attended by people from Canada, USA, UK, Spain, and other countries, as well as a handful of people in person at the museum exhibition itself.

James and I have been writing back and forth for a while know, and he raises a number of key details about the history of bagatelle that have vexed us both:

1) we have no proof about there being any sort of pinball precursor at the legendary Chateau de Bagatelle.  There are many references to the Chateau, but none describe a billiards table of any sort, and only a single source makes claim of a "gaming table".    Comte d'Artois was a known gambling addict, but a gaming table can be any table a game is played, and most often cards.  Until we can verify any specific references, it might be best to let this legend fade into history.

Let's returns to the relevant Bueschel quote, sent to me:

"The remarkable coincidence of the appearance of the new betting game of bagatelle at precisely the time that a leading member of the inner court circle and prince of France known as a sportsman and gambler who also"... kept a gaming table in his own house" in a game room of a building called Bagatelle beggars a connection between the man, the party and the game.""

The quote included by Bueschel there is from a 1903 article in The Nation.  I'll include that here!

1903 The Nation: Chateaux Bagatelle

1903 The Nation: Chateaux Bagatelle

2) I appreciate the disentangling of Fossette from the pinball pre-history...

3) Fancy pin tables in France?  Absolutely.  Just not as early as we might have thought.  Or at least, many of the examples that get passed around as "18th century pinball" are known to be 19th century, especially 2nd-half 19th century.

4) There is a table of mystery in the Deutsche Museum that they claim is from 1770-1790, based purely on the materials and build type.  But there is no provenance.

bagatelle exhibit + lecture at the Field House Museum

There will be a talk about bagatelle on 2022-08-10!  (that's tomorrow, as I write this)

FB event link, eventbrite link (use the eventbrite link to reserve for the lecture!)
remember, it is 2pm EST

I've been writing back and forth with James for a year or so and I'm super excited for this talk!   He runs the store Masters Traditional Games and the wonderful resource site TradGames: The Online Guide to Traditional Games

Join the Field House Museum on Wednesday, August 10, at 1:00 pm for a Speaker Series that takes Bagatelle from the parlor to the arcade. Gaming expert and creator of the Online Guide to Traditional Games website, James Masters, will join us via Zoom, all the way from the UK! Masters will share his passion and interest in the evolution of the table game through to pinball. For those joining us in person for the watch party, explore our main gallery exhibit, "Bagatelle," after the presentation.

This presentation will primarily take place on Zoom, but the Field House Museum will host a small watch party during the event. Reservations must be made in advance through Eventbrite, by calling the Museum at 314-421-4689, or by emailing info@fieldhousemuseum.org.

About the Speaker:

James Masters has been into the history, mathematics, strategy, camaraderie, rules, and even the playing of games since early childhood. His interests tend to whirl around pub games, table games, ancient board games, and how games of all sorts evolve over time. Author of the Online Guide to Traditional Games website and maintainer of the Games Research Database, most recently, he has completed a paper on the medieval sport of Loggats and an article on the ancient Egyptian game of Mehen for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The Field House Museum in St. Louis, MO is currently hosting a marvelous exhibition of bagatelles from Ed Nickel's collection.  Here are a few pictures that were sent to me by Ed:

And from the Field House Museum staff:

Between the knowledge of Ed Nickels in the USA, James Masters in the UK, Wayne Morgan in Canada, and Kazuo Sugiyama in Japan, we are piecing together a robust history of bagatelle and related table games.

We do need someone from Finland to discuss the history of Fortunaa, perhaps...