Gaming Table 1935 - 1942

Ferdinand Cartier made this small watercolour drawing, Gaming Table, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. Isn't it funny how the image of a thing can become something else entirely? I'm thinking about how the artist might have looked really, really closely at the table, trying to understand its form, maybe even hoping to reconstruct it on paper. The drawing hovers between reality and artifice. The dark wood grain is rendered in short, soft brushstrokes, while the sharp corners and edges are carefully delineated with a hard pencil. But it is also wonky, it feels human; the perspective is slightly off, giving it a surreal and dreamlike quality. It reminds me a little of the furniture paintings by Magritte. Cartier made other studies of furniture; I wonder whether he had any fine furniture of his own? Maybe he was hoping to be commissioned to decorate someone's game room! The image of the gaming table invites us to think about not only the object, but the person who made it.