South German Engraver — The World of Playing Cards

Published July 03, 1996 • Updated December 13, 2024

A pack of 52 cards with banner 10s, female 'Sotas', horsemen and kings, the pack was engraved in the new Plateresque style for a royal wedding.

A craftsman known as the “South German Engraver” produced this elaborate Plateresque (in the manner of the silversmith) interpretation of the Spanish-suited pack which appears to commemorate the marriage, in 1496, of Felipe I of Spain and Doña Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Plateresque artistic movement was popular amongst the ruling classes of Imperial Spain, following the Reconquista and the beginning of the colonisation of the Americas, but was usually applied to architecture.

Sometimes referred to as Schongauer's follower, the engraver worked the same way as most of his colleagues of the time: he copied and re-worked other engravers, as well as other playing cards and popular images. Some of the court figures have been adapted from other sources where they might have held a falcon rather than the present suit symbol.

(Click here to see enlargement and engraver's monogram)

The pack conforms to an archaic format of 52 cards with numeral cards running from 1 to banner 10s, female 'Sotas' or maids (not queens), cavaliers and kings. A number of other packs with similar characteristics survive elsewhere. As can be seen, these late gothic playing cards are decorated - not quite 'transformed' - with birds, animals, plants, children and other miniature creatures. The suit sign of pomegranates probably alludes to the recently reclaimed kingdom of Granada. Several original examples of this pack are known, although none are coloured, and facsimile editions have also been produced.

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A sheet with facsimile illustrations of nine cards appeared in Johann Gottlieb Immanuel Breitkopf’s “Ursprung der Spielkarten”, 1784.

Above: a facsimile copy published by Johann Gottlieb Immanuel Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1784. © The Trustees of the British Museum • number 1896,0501.1431►

Breitkopf’s “Ursprung der Spielkarten” (Attempt to research the origin of playing cards, the introduction of linen paper and the beginning of woodcutting in Europe), Leipzig, 1784, can be consulted online here►

See also:

The Upper Rhine   Master of the Banderoles   Early German Engraved Cards   Gothic Spanish-suited Playing Cards   Ambras Hunting Pack   The Stuttgart Pack   History   Hunting   Germany   Spain   Italy   Portugal   Master of the Playing-Cards   Master PW Circular Playing Cards.

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