New York scenes in a Chinese gambling-house - 1. A game of Fan-Tan" in progress; 2. A raid by the police. Small drawing of Chinese playing cards and of Chinese coin used in Fan-Tan" – Historic Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Step back in time with New York scenes in a Chinese gambling-house - 1. A game of Fan-Tan" in progress; 2. A raid by the police. Small drawing of Chinese playing cards and of Chinese coin used in Fan-Tan", an antique engraving rich in period detail. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.
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New York scenes in a Chinese gambling-house - 1. A game of Fan-Tan" in progress; 2. A raid by the police. Small drawing of Chinese playing cards and of Chinese coin used in Fan-Tan"
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In this wood engraving, two scenes from a Chinese gambling house in New York appear side by side: a game of fan-tan in progress and a police raid breaking it up. Fan-tan, a betting game in which players wager on how many coins remain after a dealer counts them out by fours, was popular in the Chinese immigrant community of lower Manhattan. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper ran the image in its December 17, 1887 issue, when such establishments drew frequent police attention and sensational press coverage. The small insets of Chinese playing cards and the coins used in the game add period detail about a world that most readers of the paper would have seen only from the outside.
| Created / published | 1887 |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : wood engraving. |
| Notes | Title and other information transcribed from caption card. Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, vol. 65, no. 1683 (1887 Dec. 17), p. 296. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,048 × 1,536 px · prints to 3 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-139390 |
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