The Stuttgart Playing Cards

Upper Rhine region, circa 1440

Württenbergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart (Germany)
Inv. Nr. KK 15-63
Date of Publication of the Facsimile: 1979
Photography: Heimeran Verlag, Munich (Germany)
Photography: Irene Schuldt and Karl Natter
Reproduction: EKG Reproduktiostechnik GmbH, Stuttgart (Germany)
Overall Production: ASS Vereinigte Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken Akteingesellschaft, Leinfelden (Germany)

Knowledge of the card game reached Europe in the second half of the fourteenth century, probably from the Far East, via Egypt, then Italy. Prohibitions against card-playing are recorded from this early period, suggesting widespread popularity.

In this unusual facsimile reproduction of a most exceptional witness to daily life in the Middle Ages -- the oldest European pack of cards in existence -- the very worn edges of the original playing cards have been restored to their probable size and appearance, by adding a clearly visible trim when necessary. The original cards were made of cardboard, pasted together in up to as many as six layers; the back were painted red. The four suits were identified by animals: ducks, falcons, hounds and stags. Thus, the duck suit consists of the 1 to 9 of ducks, the banner of ducks, the lower knight ("Unter"), and the higher knight ("Ober") of ducks, and, finally, the king of ducks. In the Stuttgart set, the picture cards depict men for the bir suits, women for the quadrupede suits.

One assumes that most playing cards would have been much plainer and more manageable than this luxurious set, which nonetheless appears to have been much used. By the mid-fifteenth century the more usual German suits were: leaves, acorns, hearts, and bells, with very much simpler designs suitable for woodblock printing.










(Permission to reproduce images from this facsimile was not granted.)

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