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| Enamelled copper quadrille pool, c. 1765. Carnegie Museum of Art. |
These enamel quadrille pools (the bowls above and below) were made from enamelling a base of shaped and cut copper, and then painting the designs with enamel colours. They were very likely made in one of the Black Country enamel-making towns, such as Bilston or Wednesbury, or in Birmingham.
Quadrille pools were bowls where the stakes (counters) were collected when playing the highly popular eighteenth-century card game of quadrille. The game was a four-person adaption of the three-person ombre and developed in the 1720s with increasing popularity through the century. In 1776 it was stated that the 'spirit of quadrille has possest the land from morning till midnight; there is nothing else in every house in town'.*1*
It was a complex game which I will not outline here, but a 71 page contemporary rule book can be seen here.
Into the pool a counter would be placed before the deal, and then players would, for example, bid to name which suit (clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds) would be named trump.
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| Quadrille by Louis Truchy after Francis Hayman, c. 1747. British Museum, now held by Birmingham Museums. |
By the 1800s the game was in decline, but Lady Catherine de Bourgh was fond of it in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), and in one instance, after 'tea was over, the card tables were placed' and Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins all sat down to play.*2*
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| Enamelled copper quadrille pool, c. 1765. Carnegie Museum of Art. |