Playing Cards in the Cloisters, April 2012

Set of Fifty-Two Playing Cards

Date: ca. 1470–80

Culture: South Netherlandish

Medium: Pasteboard with pen and ink, tempera, applied gold and silver

Dimensions: Each approx.: 5 3/8 x 2 3/4 in. (13.7 x 7 cm)

Classification: Miscellaneous-Paper

Credit Line: The Cloisters Collection, 1983

Accession Number: 1983.515.1–.52

Label:

The Cloisters set of fifty-two cards constitutes the only known complete deck of illuminated ordinary playing cards (as opposed to tarot cards) from the fifteenth century. The are four suits, each consisting of a king, a queen, a knave, and ten pip cards. The suit symbols, based on equipment associated with the hunt, are hunting horns, dog collars, hound tethers, and game nooses. The value of the pip cards is indicated by appropriate repetitions of the suit symbol. The figures, which appear to be based on Franco-Flemish models, were drawn with a bold, free, and engaging, if somewhat unrefined, hand. Their exaggerated and sometimes anachronistic costumes suggest a lampoon of extravagant Burgundian court fashions. Although some period card games are named, it is not known how they were played. Almost all card games did, however, involve some form of gambling. The condition of the set indicates that the cards were hardly used, if at all. It is possible that they were conceived as a collector's curiosity rather than as a deck for play.
The playing cards are exhibited on a rotating basis.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/475513