Master of the Playing Cards
The Master of the Playing Cards (German: Meister der Spielkarten) was the first major master in the history of printmaking. He was a German (or conceivably Swiss) engraver, and probably also a painter, active in southwestern Germany – probably in Alsace, from the 1430s to the 1450s, who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving."[1]
Various attempts to identify him have not been generally accepted, so he remains known only through his 106
Style
It has long been recognised that the Master's style was closely related to that of paintings from south-western Germany and Switzerland in the period 1430–1450, by artists of whom the best known is
Apart from comparisons with paintings, the start of his period of activity can only be dated to before 1446 by a dated print by his presumed pupil, referred to as the "Master of 1446". The fact that by then he already had a mature pupil suggests that the Master himself had been active for many years by that date.[3]
Prints done by the Master very rarely appear on the market, but on 20 September 2006 Christie's London auctioned a print titled Queen of Flowers for £243,200 (about $450,000). The print is now part of the print collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[4]
Cards
Many of Master's engravings, especially the cards, contain compositional elements that also occur in the miniatures of the Giant Bible of Mainz of 1452–3 and other illuminations made in Mainz between then and 1482, including at least one illuminated copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which is now in the Princeton University library. It has been suggested that he painted elements of these miniatures.[1] It is generally thought that both sets derive from a common manuscript model-book of the sort painters are known to have maintained, though this does not rule out his involvement, or that of his workshop, in the painting.[5] There are similar repetitions in many other manuscripts and other works of art, mostly but not all German.[6]
The cards have typical
Place in printmaking
After him came a series of other significant engravers who had trained as either an artist or a goldsmith, and after woodcuts became widely used for illustrating printed books, their quality also improved. The Master's other works are mostly religious and some are relatively large for very early engravings; these were intended mainly for insertion as illustrations into manuscript devotional books. As with most early printmakers, many of his designs survive only in copies by others, and many have not survived at all.
Some of his presumed pupils have also been given names by art historians, such as the "Master of the Nuremberg Passion", the "Master of 1446", and the "Master of the Banderoles".[3] If the Master also practiced as a painter, whether on panel or in manuscript illuminations, no identification of any of his works has been generally accepted.
References
- ^ a b c d e Alan Shestack; Fifteenth century Engravings of Northern Europe;1967, National Gallery of Art, Washington (Catalogue), LOC 67-29080
- ^ Lehrs, Max. Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des deutschen, niederländischen und französischen Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Gesellschaft für vervielfältigende Kunst, 1908-1934): vol. I, pp. 63-207
- ^ ISBN 0-486-20954-7
- ^ "Master of the Playing Cards - The Queen of Flowers". MetMuseum.org. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
- ^ ISBN 0691003262
- ISSN 0004-3079
- ^ See Van Buren & Edmunds op cit for a table
- ISBN 9780486209548. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
Literature
NB: Twenty-nine of the cards, and other prints, are illustrated on Commons at [1]
- Max Geisberg: Das älteste gestochene deutsche Kartenspiel vom Meister der Spielkarten, Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, Heitz, Straßburg 1905 - The standard work on the cards, in which all are reproduced.
- Dorothy Miner, The Great Bible of Mainz, 500th Anniversary, Washington 1952
- Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Gutenberg and the Master of the Playing Cards, 1966 (Yale)
- Martha Anne Wood Wolff: The Master of the playing cards: an early engraver and his relationship to traditional media, 1979, Dissertation, Yale; UMI (ProQuest), Dissertation Services, 2002
- Martha Wolff: Some Manuscript Sources for the Playing Card Master's Number Cards, In: The Art Bulletin 64, Dec. 1982, p. 587-600, ISSN 0004-3079
External links
- More images
- Two cards from The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "The Queen of Stags" by the Master of the Playing Cards, and "Five of Flowers" by a student of the Master of Playing cards
- Schoyen collection - a Book of Hourswith border decorations including motifs from the cards - MS 007