A Catalan-style pack of c.1860

Belonging to the early production of López y Compañía, this is a conventional 48-card Spanish-suited pack in the Catalan style current among Barcelona manufacturers around 1860. The swords, clubs and cups follow established forms, while the court figures and some of the suit designs show variations found between contemporary packs. The ace of coins is more ornamented, with a central medallion containing a somewhat dishevelled male head, surmounted by a crown and supported by two sphinx-like figures and flags. The unusual treatment of the central head is one of several small variations that distinguish this López version of the pattern. The four of coins contains a maritime scene including an anchor and caduceus. The four of cups bears López y Compañía's familiar Fama emblem and the inscription “Por Lopez y Compa. Barcelona”.

The pack is interesting less for originality than for its place within the shared design tradition of nineteenth-century Barcelona cardmaking. Ferro Torrelles (2015) noted that the López example is extraordinarily similar to a pack by Viuda de Sanmartí e Hijo, apparently printed from the same woodblock with differences mainly in colouring (see similar pack by Sanmartí, 1840). Such reuse or adaptation of blocks was evidently part of the working practice of Barcelona cardmakers, making it difficult to regard individual designs as the exclusive property of a particular manufacturer.

Ferro Torrelles refers to this as model no. 6, but this is his catalogue reference and is not a number printed on the cards. The same design was catalogued by Willshire in his Descriptive Catalogue of Playing Cards (1876) as S.24, where it is described simply as a “pack of numerals of the typical kind”. The subsequent reuse of the design by Fulladosa y Cía. and during the Morera Buxó period, suggests that it became an established pattern within the firm's repertoire, continuing through the later use of the Fulladosa name.

References

Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona : Catàleg de la Col·leció de Naips (2018) ►

British Museum : López and Company (click ‘Related objects’)►

Ferro Torrelles, Víctor : López y Compañía, una vida de inventor, La Sota Número 44, Octubre 2015.

Somerville, Roddy : Catalan-style pack by Fulladosa ►

Willshire, W. H.: A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum, 1876, reprint 1975. (Spanish 24)