The Game of Draughts

The Game of Draughts, dated around 1630 and in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, is an unusual subject for Preti — a genre scene of two figures engaged in the board game known as draughts or checkers — that shows his engagement with the broader Baroque tradition of figures absorbed in games and leisure activities. Caravaggio had established the game-playing scene as a vehicle for exploring the theme of deception and the reading of other people's intentions in The Cardsharps, and the tradition continued through the seventeenth century. A game of draughts requires close mutual attention and strategic thought — two figures bent over the board, each trying to read the other's intentions. Preti uses this situation to study the psychology of competition: focused, non-communicative, each player constructing their own strategy while observing the other. The Ashmolean's Oxford collections hold this alongside the Two Peasants Brouwer, providing an interesting comparison between Flemish and Italian approaches to genre subject matter.

The board game provides an unusual compositional element — the geometric grid of the draughts board — within Preti's otherwise figure-dominated compositions. The game pieces, the board, and the players' hands poised over it form a still-life cluster at the composition's center that contrasts with the mobile, psychological engagement of the two faces above it. Strong lighting from one side creates the dramatic shadow play characteristic of Preti's genre works.