Secretos de Oriente
Secrets of the Far East playing cards featuring the designs of Violeta Monreal , Spain, c. 1991.
Secretos de Oriente, published in 1991, is perhaps one of the most beautiful of the Fournier non-standard double pack sets, featuring the classical designs of Violeta Monreal (b. 1963) inspired by the formal and visual aesthetics of the oriental screen and by pattern designs for ornaments and clothes.
This pack has its basis in Chinese, Japanese and Korean art, and different themes are assembled not according to suit, but rather across cards of the same number (i.e. the twos, threes, fours of each suit). So, for example, the heron or stork appears on the twos, fish on the eights, horses on the fours. The court cards depict samurai (jacks), geishas (queens) and emperors (kings).
The pack has 52 cards, plus 3 dragon Jokers, and is accompanied by 2 folded papers that between them describe the pack in 4 different languages: English, French, Spanish and German. The cards are bridge size, with gold gilt on the corners, while the box is a tray with an artistic sleeve. See the box►
Above: Secrets of the Far East playing cards published by Fournier featuring the designs of Violeta Monreal , Spain, c. 1991.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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