The Master of the Playing Cards was the first major master in the history of printmaking. He was a German (or conceivably Swiss) engraver, and probably also a painter, active in southwestern Germany from the 1430s to the 1450s, who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving." Various attempts to identify him have not been generally accepted, so he remains known only through his 106 engravings, which include the set of playing cards in five suits from which he takes his name. The majority of the set survives in unique impressions, most of which are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. A further eighty-eight engravings are regarded as sufficiently close to his style to be by his pupils.
Read more about Master Of The Playing Cards: Style, Cards, Place in Printmaking
Famous quotes containing the words master of the, master of, master, playing and/or cards:
“Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
“A penniless man who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so begins for us the cruelest trouble of all.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a printer, and was somewhat of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again as if only an afternoon had intervened.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The traditional American husband and father had the responsibilities—and the privileges—of playing the role of primary provider. Sharing that role is not easy. To yield exclusive access to the role is to surrender some of the potential for fulfilling the hero fantasy—a fantasy that appeals to us all. The loss is far from trivial.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn’t order any credit cards! We don’t spend what we don’t have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”
—Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)