Tapestry panel from the Royal Aubusson Manufactory The Game of Colin-Maillard In wool and silk. Basse lisse weaving Second half of the 18th century H: 230 - W: 205 cm Oxidation, wear, tears, creasing, part folded at the top with an existing and preserved part. Cartoons after Claude-Nicolas Cochin (1688-1754), Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) and Jean-Baptiste Huet (1745-1811) This story refers to Jean Colin (Colin being a diminutive of Nicolas), a 10th-century mason from Liège, who was a Hutoy warrior who fought against the Count of Louvain, armed only with a mallet (hence the name Maillard). He had his eyes gouged out during a battle but nevertheless continued to fight, striking at random all around him with his mallet, his weapon of choice. In Ancient Greece, people practised a kind of Colin-Maillard called the bronze fly (described by Suetonius and Pollux). In literature and in the memoirs of Saint-Simenon, Louis XIV is shown playing this game with his companion Roger Brulart de Puysieulx. The game consists of one of the players blindfolding himself with a scarf or tea towel and trying to find and catch his friends who have hidden around him. The player who is caught must allow himself to be identified. Our scene depicts a group of five characters playing Colin Maillard in a garden, with a château in perspective against the background. A fine frame of symmetrically drawn vegetation. The border is formed by a gilded bamboo frame decorated with sprigs and garlands of flowers and foliage in polychrome. Expert: Frank Kassapian