Playing Cards

"ZENITH OF DECORATIVE PLAYING CARDS, WITH MOSLEM ROOTS. Playing Cards with swords, cups, pomegranates and clubs as suit symbols.(mixed printings). 47 (of 52) engraved playing cards (each ca. 13 x 7 cm), with the "Spanish" suits (swords, cups, clubs, coins), but with the coins replaced by pomegranates, representing Granada and the royal family of Aragon. Besides the suit symbols, they are richly decorated with an enormous variety of symbolic decoration, especially real and mythical animals. Lacking the 3 of cups and the 9, 10, jack and king of pomegranates. Collected and tipped onto cards ca. 1925, preserved in a half-cloth folder. Bartsch X, pp. 42-45 (estampes anon. 15th cen. VI.A.2); http://trionfi.com/0/p/22/t1.php; www.wopc.co.uk/germany/sge.html; not in D'Allemagne, Cartes à Jouer. A nearly complete collection of playing cards from a famous and fascinating series engraved in southern Germany ca. 1496, and believed to commemorate the marriage in that year of the future King Philip I of Spain (son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I) to Joanna the Mad (daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile). www.wopc.co.uk illustrates eighteen cards from this series and notes with explicit reference to them that, "during the second half of the fifteenth century, ..., a succession of masterly German engravers practised their art and decorative playing cards reached a zenith." For the most part the series uses the traditional "Spanish" suits, believed to have come to Europe from the Moslem "Mameluke" dynasty of Egypt in the late fourteenth century. These were originally swords (our spades), cups or chalices (our hearts), coins (our diamonds) and polo sticks (converted in Europe to "clubs" in the form of wooden branches, before the trefoil cloverleaf made its entry), but the coins are here replaced with pomegranates. The pomegranate was a symbol of (and takes its name from) the Moorish kingdom of Grenada (1230s-1492) with its seat in the city of Granada. King Ferdinand's conquest of the city in 1492 brought an end to the kingdom, setting the stage for a unified Spain and for Columbus's voyage, and he added the pomegranate to the foot of his Aragon and Castile coat of arms. His daughters also used the pomegranate as a heraldic badge, and through Joanna's marriage to the future King Philip it came into the Spanish coat of arms. The present playing cards are certainly southern German and have been attributed on stylistic grounds to a follower of Martin Schongauer in the period 1480 to 1500, but the substitution of pomegranates for coins strongly suggests a date after 1492, and Joanna's marriage to Philip seems a likely occasion. Brietkopf noted this series in his 1784 Ursprung der Spielkarten, where he reproduced nine of the cards from engraved copies. The kings are shown seated on thrones and the queens standing. In accordance with ancient traditions, what we know as jacks are represented by horsemen, and the ten of each suit has a person or animal holding a banner that bears the suit symbol. The very extensive and symbolic (sometimes bizarre) decoration includes a wide variety of people, plants and animals, including dragons (one fighting a knight, presumably Saint George), a griffon, a centaur and a unicorn. Two cards include coats of arms that may help to elucidate the origins of the series, but one field in each is occupied by a flourish that may not be part of the arms and few of the tinctures are indicated. We have not identified them. The ten of swords shows chief a lion passant and base sinister a field argent and gules, divided per bend. The two of clubs shows chief dexter a lion's head in profile and base dexter a field argent (or merely blank?). Although the cards were engraved ca. 1496, the present collection comes from at least two different printings and the few watermarks visible cannot be clearly discerned, making them difficult to date. Most have vertical chainlines, but a few that may be printed on the same paper stock have horizontal chain lines. In very good condition, with a few cards backed with modern paper. A nearly complete collection of playing cards from one of the most fascinating series, richly decorated and with mysterious symbolism."