Spanish suited playing cards made in Germany
During the second half of the fifteenth century, with printing technology commercially established and playing cards already a mass-produced commodity, a succession of masterly German engravers practised their art and decorative playing cards reached a zenith. The South German Engraver was one such craftsman who produced an elaborate, Gothic Spanish-suited pack of playing cards. Conforming to an archaic format of 52 cards with banner 10s, female ‘Sotas’, horsemen and kings, the pack is of interest on account of a number of other packs with similar characteristics surviving elsewhere, suggesting an archaic ‘prototype’ for the Spanish-suited genre.
Above: five engraved cards from a pack with Spanish suit symbols made in South Germany around 1480. The inscription 'Valenzia' is visible on some cards and also the coat-of-arms of the kingdom of Aragon, for where the pack was presumably destined.
Below: German-made pack commemorating the marriage of Felipe I "El Hermoso" and Dońa Juana in 1496. The suit of pomegranates alludes to the kingdom of Granada which had recently been re-conquered. The technique of engraving on copper plates, used here, permits great detail in the finished result. More...
