This is a really strange connection, so well done if you got it. It refers to the fact that in the game of marbles, you lay a ring out on the floor with a piece of string, then scatter a group of marbles inside it. Once the string is removed it ought to have made a mark on the dusted surface, and the idea is that you flick your "shooter" marble at the group, hoping to knock the ones inside the ring outside it. Now the marbles on that floor, that you shoot, at are called "ducks" - and this appears to also be the true origin of the phrase "a sitting duck".
This is a lovely card, showing a youthful chef whiling away his spare time by playing marbles with a chauffeur of a similar age.
And I was coming to the conclusion that it is the only card to ever show the game of marbles, but I have been told that this is wrong - the game is featured on card 15 of Sarony`s "Origin of Games", which tells us that "The origin of this game is concealed in the mists of antiquity, Marbles were used by Egyptian and Roman children before the Christian era, and can be seen in the British Museum, Probably the small stone spheres found among neolithic remains are prehistoric marbles. No doubt the game that the youthful Augustus, like all Roman children, played with nuts was a form of marbles. The earliest unmistakable reference to marbles was in the 12th century."
This is interesting, as most sites agree that marbles date back to prehistory, when they were made of clay, stolen from the banks of rivers, then rolled round in the palms and made to a rounder shape, before being laid out in the sun to harden. But of course, just like the card says, rolling an object, a nut, a stone, would definitely have come first.
Since I started this, I have also been told of a dedicated website, buymarbles.com, which has a section showing lots of other chromos and trade cards - including ours! It does not list the set names though, so I am still guessing that.
There are also two modern trade/commercial sets, each of eight medium sized cards, measuring 73 x 52 m/m, showcasing the marbles themselves, both by Design At London Colour Ltd. These are called "Marbles The Beauty of Glass & Stone", and there is a first and second series, both of which were issued in 2024.
Strangely, there seems to be no standardised rules, but there are lots of regional variations, and many different ways to play. The main ones, though, seem to either to strike an assigned marble with yours, or come closest thereto (a bit like bowling), or to knock as many out of a ring as you can, the one who knocks the most in one strike, or a combination of strikes being the winner.
There is also a superstition, that it can only be played from Ash Wednesday, until mid-day on Good Friday. After that to play was bad luck. We are not sure why this is.