Playing Cards — Marlborough's Victories
(London: Circa 1707)
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Playing Cards — Marlborough's Victories
52 playing cards. Engravings, signed, with captions, and plain versos; a few pale spots and small stains, a tiny loss at the lower right corner of the queen of hearts. 13 of the cards are mounted in a frame, the rest are housed in a folder attached to the back of the frame.
3½ by 2½ in. (cards); 26 by 20 in. (frame)
9 by 6.25 cm; 66 by 51 cm
Sotheby's, London, 10 December 2013, English literature, history, children's books and illustrations, lot 227);
Acquired at the above sale by the present collector
Jaime Ortiz-Patiño Collection of Early Playing Cards, #17;
The Fournier Museum Catalogue, Volume I: British Isles, #32
Hargrave, Catherine Perry, A History of Playing Cards and a Bibliography of Cards and Gaming, (Boston, 1930), p. 197
A "most elaborately engraved" deck of cards commemorating Queen Anne's reign up to 1706 (Hargrave, p. 197). The cards depict various important events from her tenure, particularly the victories of John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), when England and her allies fought the French and the Austrians. The court cards include members of European royalty, including Eugene of Savoy, Charles III of Spain, and Queen Anne. The deck also features an entirely anti-French suit of Spades, satirizing Louis XIV and his court, including the portrayal of Madame de Maintenon as a turkey seller.
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