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# 18

Bird miniatures, French, around 1700.

Researching the secondary use of playing cards is asking for trouble. The nature of researchers is to know everything, however if it comes to reused playing cards one has to admit there is a lot we will never find out. With most cards I buy I get a lot of questions for free. Frustrating for scientists, but I am not. I totally agree with what Belgium collector Robert van Gool once told me: It is more intriguing and fun to puzzle about ‘maybe’ than knowing ‘for sure’. In his case it had to do with the question whether or not a pack of cards was designed by a famous artist. Some experts said yes and some said no. Important issue in this dispute is the value of this pack: if it is really produced by the famous artist, Robert has to inform his insurance agent real quick...

   Playing card maker: Jehan Volay (Delotz family), Thiers?, France.

I am no art expert but the cards I have selected to show you this month are in my opinion true pieces of art. They were painted some 300 years ago, but we will never know who this artist was. No name, no reference. Nothing but 40 cards with 39 different birds on the back. What could inspire someone who could paint so beautifully and with such refinement to create tiny pieces of art on the backs of used playing cards with spots and dirty edges?

An enlarged picture to show you the fine details and brush strokes.

These playing cards of the Spanish Navarra type were made in France around 1670. The birds were painted later, probably around 1700. In those days, there were few if any books about birds, and definitely none with illustrations of this high quality. Did the maker want to create a card system showing the birds he knew? If so, why isn’t any more information about the bird, such as a name, included? Even after hundreds of years, the colours are still bright.

P.S. If you ever make a painting or drawing on the back of a playing card, would you please be so kind and sign your name on the other side, with a proper dating. Thank you very much, on behalf of all future secondary used playing card collectors!

Gejus                                    

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