Game Box with Hunting Scenes (After engravings by Virgil Solis, 1514-1562) Germany, after 1540 Ebony with mahogany and ivory inlay Chess and backgammon, favorite pastimes of the upper classes in the Middle Ages, were even more popular in the sixteenth century, despite long-standing religious strictures against game playing and gambling. In response to the Church's disapproval, a number of manuals and treatises were written justifying the moral and educational values of chess and other games. The depiction of the hunt as recreation fits the aristocratic milieu for which game boxes were intended. Not only are game playing and hunting symbolically analogous, but both were considered arts as well as pastimes. Game boards such as this one were favorite vehicles for craftsmen, who thrived in a flourishing art market fostered by the wealth brought into southern Germany by the Fugger banking family of Augsburg.