The earliest playing cards were hand-painted, often gilded, and designed to be beautiful objects. Packs of cards were mentioned in wills and inventories, and given as wedding presents, so would have been considered valuable and precious. Not only were cards gilded and painted in many colours, and not merely decorated with ornamental patterns, but often the designs themselves showed great artistic skill, harmony of colour and grace of forms. |
For over six centuries - apart from its functionality as a number game - the playing card has been chosen as a medium for artistry, aesthetic endeavour and ornamental design, ranging from hand-painted and engraved cards for medieval patrons, to the chromo-lithographic delights and transformation cards of the nineteenth century, and the designer and art packs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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Far Left: The Princely Hunting Pack of Ambras, hand-painted, attributed to the
workshop of Konrad Witz, c.1440
Left: The Book of Trades by Jost Ammon, woodcuts, mid-XVI century
Right: Fantasy playing cards made for Cigarrillos El Perú, Roldan y Cia, Lima (Peru), chromo-lithography, c.1890 |
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