The Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (Court Hunting Pack of Ambras; sometimes the Ambras falconer cards[1] or the Courtly Hunt Cards[2][3]) is a pack of cards painted around 1440–1445 and attributed to the engraver Konrad Witz from Basel, Switzerland.[4] It originally consisted of fifty-six cards from which only 54 survive, all distributed in four suits, falcons, lures, hounds and herons, symbols related to hunting.[4] Each suit contained ten pip cards with the 10s being represented by a banner like many old German playing cards and modern Swiss playing cards. There are four face cards per suit: the Unter, Ober, Queen, and King. It was found in a collection at the Ambras Castle, in Innsbruck, Austria, in the 16th century, and now figures as a precious item in the collection of cards of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna.[5]
Facsimile
[edit]A facsimile of the pack was produced as a boxed set in 1995 by Piatnik in conjunction with the Kunsthistorisches Museum. It does not attempt to reproduce the missing two cards of the original pack.[6][7]
See also
[edit]- Flemish Hunting Deck, another 15th-century hunting deck
- Stuttgarter Kartenspiel, another 15th-century hunting deck
- Hofämterspiel, a deck found together with the Hofjagdspiel in Ambras Castle
References
[edit]- ^ Hurst, Michael J. "Collected Fragments of Tarot History". The Arcane Archive. Retrieved 2 July 2012.
- ^ Grimes, William (January 21, 2016). "With These Cards, Every Hand's a Winner". The New York Times.
- ^ Husband, Tim (March 31, 2016). "Hunt and House: Depictions of Medieval Life in German Playing Cards". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ a b The World of Playing Cards. "The Ambras Court Hunting pack, c. 1445". WOPC. Retrieved 2 July 2012.
- ^ Bialostocki, Jan (1998). El Arte Del Siglo XV: De Parler a Durero (in Spanish). Ediciones Akal. p. 205. ISBN 847-090-347-0.
- ^ Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien at khm.at. Retrieved 18 Feb 2022.
- ^ Ambraser Hofjagdspiel at piatnik.com. Retrieved 18 February 2022.