[Playing cards | Cartes à jouer]

[Northern France (Paris?), not after 1789]

[52] cards | 82 x 54 mm

A complete, standard 52-card deck of French playing cards, using the typical Paris pattern (Portrait de Paris), a pictorial repertoire that probably dates to the 15th century: the Jack of Diamonds is labeled Hector, the Jack of Hearts labeled Lahire, the right hand of the King of Spades rests on a harp, the Queen of Clubs holds a fan in her left hand, and a dog jumps beside the Jack of Spades. Around the middle of the 18th century, this pattern was made the standard for the whole of Northern France. It's certainly possible our deck was printed Paris, though in that case we might expect more than just two court cards to bear printed names. Given this combination of criteria—and their impeccable condition—we're disinclined to date these earlier than the second half of the 18th century. Whatever the case, our deck was certainly printed before the French Revolution erupted in 1789, when the traditional court cards were replaced with less monarchical imagery. ¶ The earliest playing cards come from the East and had appeared in Europe by the 14th century. By the 15th century, they had become one of the most common printed products in Europe, rivaling even the devotional woodcut. Card playing was easily among the top pastimes of Europe's upper classes, and one that could (and did) fuel some truly reckless gambling habits. Different parts of Europe used different suits, but the four that came to dominate the English-speaking world—Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades—first took root in France. With French cards, "the pack is reduced to real simplicity and order. The division of the four suits into two suits of red and two of black was of itself a stroke of genius, especially when combined with ‘pips’ of simple shape, capable of being easily reproduced by stenciling. The French treatment enormously simplified the task and cost of production, and clarified the suits for the benefit of the players." These suits "could be shown quite clearly in a small space, and each in one colour, in fact, with one sweep of the brush over the stencil plate, even if there were ten 'pips' on the card" (Benham). In the 18th century, it wasn’t unusual for playing cards to bear any variety of useful or amusing information. But our cards are not heraldic, geographical, or satirical. They are not educational or clever. These cards were good for one thing: gambling. ¶ The production of playing cards was no simple process. Careful paper handling was paramount, as any crease was liable to result in a permanent tell. Multiple colors were applied by stencil and the cards would be heated dry. Before polishing, they would be wiped with a coating of dry soap to protect them from scratches. When all was done, cards would be sorted by quality. It was critical that the backs were free of any tells and that the paper was of a uniform color (face cards and point cards were typically printed on separate sheets). The whitest, clearest cards were considered the best. Those of lesser quality could still be packed with those of similar caliber, while the worst were liable to be sold by the pound. ¶ A well preserved example of one of the staples of early modern Europe’s print culture.

CONDITION: Printed on the rectos only of thick laid paper, the backs plain, and all likely colored with stencils. Noted 18th-century biblioclast John Bagford witnessed playing cards being printed not on a press, but by rubbing the paper atop the wood block, just as blockbooks were made in the 15th century. That could explain the rather gray ink of our court cards, hardly the deep black of typical letterpress ink. With a fine hand-varnished appearance, perhaps the result of the soaping and smoothing process (and which doubtless would have offered a bit of moisture protection when drinking). ¶ A single numeral 1 penciled on the back of each card, and a thin line across the back of the Ace of Clubs. Really in fantastic condition, corners sharp, free of any creases, and very clean.

REFERENCES: Sylvia Mann, Collecting Playing Cards (Bell, [1966?]), p. 22-23 (“Where old packs of cards are concerned, do not be too fussy about completeness or even condition, unless you are extremely wealthy, or patient, or both. Even a single card from an interesting pack can be informative.”), 59 ("French court cards are usually named. This has always been so in the Paris area although the practice was infrequent in the provinces...The actual design of the court cards of the Paris pattern probably belongs to the fifteenth century."), 62-64 (describing the Paris pattern and reproducing a few cards); W. Gurney Benham, Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanation of Its Many Secrets (London: Spring), p. 12 (cited above), 124 (good explanation of English adoption of the French suits), 132 ("French cards were exported to all parts of the Continent and the number of French card-makers during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries is almost incredible"), 139 (French “card-makers soon showed their eagerness for the Revolution by transforming their cards. Of their own accord they eradicated all emblems of royalty.”); Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, Art du Cartier (1762), p. 25-26 (on soaping), 26 (the lisseur’s actions produce “the shine [brillant] that distinguishes the good cards from the common ones”), 31-33 (on sorting the cards); Catherine Perry Hargrave, A History of Playing Cards and a Bibliography of Cards and Gaming (Dover, 1966), p. 41 ("the French suit signs are supposed to have been introduced by a famous knight, Étienne Vignoles, or Lahire, as he is called...The suit of Coeurs denotes the church; Carreaux, the arrowheads or diamonds, are symbolic of the vassals, from whom the archers and bowmen were drawn; Trèfles, or clover (clubs) signifies the husbandmen, and Piques, or points of lances (spades), the knights themselves."), 297-300 (an 1825 American article on the production of French playing cards, which seems to draw on Duhamel du Monceau); Whitney Trettien, Cut/Copy/Paste (2021), p. 237 (on Bagford and the printing method); Albert Ward, Book Production, Fiction, and the German Reading Public (1974), p. 124 ("The chief indoor pastimes of the nobility were the theatre and opera, card-games, concerts, balls, and redoubts; the chief pastime of the courtier in his many idle hours was cards")

Item #840