The Ortiz-Patiño Tarot Card, with the Page of Staves, illuminated miniature on card [northern Italy (probably Milan), mid-fifteenth century]

tarot card, 171mm. by 87mm., with the Page of Staves (Fante di bastoni), as a fashionably dressed young man, holding his gilt-headed staff and looking to the right, all before a grassy landscape and wide brightly burnished gold sky, pounced and scored with lines and clusters of points, tempera and burnished gold on gessoed card, approximately 1.5mm. thick,  the back painted in reddish brown, small circular hole (3mm. in diameter) in the centre at top (probably from earlier suspension or framing), the upper half with traces of original paint (flaked away to reveal gold underlayer), the lower half restored and overpainted, large gilt frame

1. In the Marzoli collection in Milan in 1978; and thence to the bookdealer Laurence Witten (1926-95): his printed label and stock number 5596 DB/RCC on back.

2. Acquired by Jaime Ortiz-Patiño in Christie’s, New York, 21 June 2006, for $17,000.

Stuart R. Kaplan, The Encyclopaedia of Tarot, I, New York 1978, p.105

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

illumination

The Ortiz-Patiño Tarot Card has been identified by Kaplan as the only surviving card from an otherwise lost Visconti-Sforza tarot deck. The tooled background with a panelled diapered pattern including suns with meandering rays, is characteristic for most of the surviving Visconti-Sforza decks, and the composition here is identical to that of two other tarot cards belonging to different sets (one in the Academia Carrara, Bergamo, and another once in the collection of the London dealer Rosenthal: see Kaplan, p.78 for a reproduction of the former). However, the present card varies from all the other Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi in its use of gold-leaf, which here is laid over the entire area above the landscape, forming the main surface on which the figure was painted. This was probably the reason for the pigment loss, and may identify this as the earliest card to survive, gilded in a format quickly set aside by the team of Milanese artists who produced them, perhaps under the guidance of the Cremonese artist Bonifacio Bembo. If correct, then despite its condition, this is an important relic of Italian Renaissance painting techniques, and worthy of future study.

The Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi are the earliest extant tarot cards, dating from the mid-fifteenth century. Based on the identification of heraldic devices that are found on many of the cards, they can be linked to the two powerful and draconian ducal dynasties who ruled Renaissance Milan, namely that of the shrewd and cruel politician, Filippo Maria Visconti (reigned 1412-47), and his successor Francesco Sforza (reigned 1450-66). It has been surmised that the various decks, each in itself a significant commission, were produced to commemorate important events, such as wedding presents for the marriages of Filippo Visconti to Maria de Savoy in 1428, and Francesco Sforza to Bianca Maria Visconti in 1441.

The cards were near-obsessively sought after by collectors and institutions in the last century and a half, and the three most complete sets are now predominantly split between public collections. The Brera-Brambilla deck of 48 extant cards was acquired for the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Cary-Yale deck of 67 cards is now in the Beinecke in Yale, and the Bergamo/New York deck with 74 of 78 original cards is divided between the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York and the Academia Carrara and the Casa Colleoni in Bergamo.