ABSTRACT
In 1560 Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Brueghel created the famous oil painting Children’s Games. This elaborate composition depicts myriad children playing games in a town square, with over 80 forms of play portrayed in meticulous detail. What is striking is the rich variety of children’s games: leapfrog, marbles, piggyback, tree-climbing, hoops, ball games and much more. Even more arresting is that almost every game Brueghel documented in the sixteenth century is still played by children half a millennium later. How is this remarkable persistency of children’s play activities possible, given the vast social and economic shifts over this period?
