The Mrs. Forster Collection
Playing cards featuring original botanical paintings by Mrs. Sidney Eliza Forster from the 1890s.
This pack, printed in Belgium for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, features original paintings by Mrs. Sidney Eliza Forster from the 1890s and which are now housed in the Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, having been donated by her niece in 1934. According to the extra card Mrs. Forster’s paintings “embody a synergy between flower painting and botanical illustration in that whilst they display enormous attention to detail and scientific accuracy, her paintings are also delicately beautiful”. Each suit illustrates the same set of paintings, giving the name of the plant, where it was gathered, and the date.
Above: the Mrs. Forster Collection playing cards published by the Royal Botanic Gardens. Printed in Belgium.
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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