Jeu de Quaternes ‘Rizá’

Published February 05, 2021 • Updated March 06, 2021

Jeu de Quaternes (Quartet game) with bold octagonal artwork and lettering by ‘Rizá’ whose signature appears on every card, accompanied by a motif of three square boxes in blue, white and red, like a French flag. The card for Le Tableau (blackboard) has the first line of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem: “Allons enfants de la Patrie”, lending the game a patriotic overtone. The card for Les Gants (Gloves) has the inscription “Made in France”. Beyond these clues, we have no details of the publisher or date.

Above: a quartet game made in France designed by Rizá, unknown publisher/manufacturer. 60 cards, blank backs, box missing.

The cards appear to have been hand-coloured by a previous owner (in which case they may have been published in b/w only). For example, the triple box motifs are uncoloured on the ‘Le Maïs’ and ‘Le Citron’ cards, and are the wrong way round on the ‘La Souris’ card. However the shiny surface of the board would have been very difficult to colour with watercolours, so this issue is inconclusive. The backs are plain white.

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By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

United Kingdom • Member since January 30, 2009

Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many. His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service. Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.