Each card in this French fortune-telling pack is a small hand-colored picture of everyday life around 1830: a wedding, a widow in her veils, a draper behind his counter, a coach being loaded for a journey. A miniature playing card sits in the upper left corner and a number in the upper right. With those miniatures a reader could lay the pictures out like the short thirty-two-card piquet pack that French card readers worked with, and read each scene as part of the answer.
The women wear the wide sleeves of the early 1830s, and the men the high collars and tailcoats of the same years. On some cards an early hand has written a title in ink across the top: Homme veuf (widower), Veuve (widow), L’Amour, Voyage, Billet doux.
This listing offers the scene cards: the house behind its gate, the old man at his strongbox, the weeping willow of Mélancolie, the dog carrying a love letter, and the rest.
The pack came to us with thirty-one of its thirty-two cards; number 21, the nine of hearts, was already gone. We are offering the cards singly. Choose the card from the menu; each one is shown in the photographs.
[French fortune-telling cards.] France, [c. 1830]. A single card from a numbered pack of thirty-two, of which thirty-one survive.
Physical Description: Printed and colored by hand, on card, with plain backs. Numbered at upper right, a miniature playing card at upper left; some cards titled in ink in an early hand. About 68 x 100 mm.
Condition: Toned, with light soiling and wear from use; a few cards with small chips or losses at the corners. Individual cards vary, as the photographs show.
Each card in this French fortune-telling pack is a small hand-colored picture of everyday life around 1830: a wedding, a widow in her veils, a draper behind his counter, a coach being loaded for a journey. A miniature playing card sits in the upper left corner and a number in the upper right. With those miniatures a reader could lay the pictures out like the short thirty-two-card piquet pack that French card readers worked with, and read each scene as part of the answer.
The women wear the wide sleeves of the early 1830s, and the men the high collars and tailcoats of the same years. On some cards an early hand has written a title in ink across the top: Homme veuf (widower), Veuve (widow), L’Amour, Voyage, Billet doux.
This listing offers the scene cards: the house behind its gate, the old man at his strongbox, the weeping willow of Mélancolie, the dog carrying a love letter, and the rest.
The pack came to us with thirty-one of its thirty-two cards; number 21, the nine of hearts, was already gone. We are offering the cards singly. Choose the card from the menu; each one is shown in the photographs.
[French fortune-telling cards.] France, [c. 1830]. A single card from a numbered pack of thirty-two, of which thirty-one survive.
Physical Description: Printed and colored by hand, on card, with plain backs. Numbered at upper right, a miniature playing card at upper left; some cards titled in ink in an early hand. About 68 x 100 mm.
Condition: Toned, with light soiling and wear from use; a few cards with small chips or losses at the corners. Individual cards vary, as the photographs show.
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