Playing Cards — A manuscript deck of cards likely made during the Napoleonic Wars by a prisoner of War
(England: circa 1810?)
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Playing Cards — A manuscript deck of cards, likely made by a Napoleonic-era prisoner of war
52 manuscript playing cards. Pen and ink on paper, with watercolor, captions in English, blank versos. Light soiling and toning. 16 cards, the face cards and aces, are mounted in a frame, the rest housed in archival sleeves in a folder attached to the back of the frame.
3 ½ by 2 ⅓ in. (each card); 26 by 20 in. (frame)
9 x 6 cm; 66.5 x 51 cm
Jaime Ortiz-Patiño (Sotheby's, London, 10 December 2013, English literature, history, children's books and illustrations,
lot 241);
Acquired at the above sale by the present collector
Jaime Ortiz-Patiño Collection of Early Playing Cards, #122
A finely painted deck of playing cards, likely made by a Napoleonic-era prisoner of war.
Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, French prisoners, held captive in England fashioned intricate, small-sized games to sell to local townspeople. They often produced sets of dominoes, dice, cribbage boards, and decks of cards out of painted cow bone. It is rare to find a deck of cards on paper, such as this.
The ace of spades card in this deck features an unusual design — a literal spade, or shovel, instead of the commonly found leaf-like symbol.
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