Card game — The Infant's Cabinet of Fishes, London, 1801

Card game in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (museum number E.427-1937), made in London, dated 1801, attributed to John Marshall. The museum's brief description reads: Boxed set of cards, The Infant's cabinet of Fishes, published in England by John Marshall in 1801.

Museum description: Wooden box with sliding lid that has an illustration of a fishbowl containing three fish on a table in a garden. The box is lined with pink paper and contains twenty-seven cards and a small printed booklet. One of the cards is from a different set and has a picture of a 'Chinese Manderine' (sic). The other twenty-six cards are incomplete sets from two volumes - twelve from Vol I and fourteen from Vol II.

The booklet is titled A History of Fishes Volume II and has descriptions of thirty fish. The fish cards each have a hand coloured etching of a fish with its name and a reference to where it appears in the History of Fishes. Also on the card is the publisher's name and address and date of publication, October 3 1801. The animals and activities depicted are: 'Porcupine Fish', 'Charr', 'The Whale Fishery', 'Opah or King Fish', 'Nasal Notocanthus', 'The Herring Fishery', 'Carp', 'Bleak', 'Cat-Fish', 'Banded Perch', 'Paper Nautilus', 'Yellow Loricaria', 'Shooting Fish', 'Sword-Fish',… The museum records it as Wood, hand-coloured card and bound paper, measuring Length 9.1 cm; Width 6.3 cm; Height 4 cm; Length 7.4 cm; Width 4.7 cm.

These details come from the museum's own record; how far this object represents a wider collectible type has not yet been independently verified.