Master of The Playing Cards - Place in Printmaking

Place in Printmaking

Woodcut old master prints had begun around the turn of the century, and were extremely popular by the start of the Master of the Playing Cards' career, but were then almost all very crudely executed. Playing cards and religious images were the vast majority of the production. Although he comes very early in the history of engraving for prints, the Master of the Playing Cards is certainly not the inventor of the technique, but he is the first significant artist to use either printmaking technique. After him come a series of other significant engravers with a training as either an artist or a goldsmith, and after woodcuts became used for illustrating printed books their quality also improved. The Master's other works are mostly religious and some are relatively large for very early engravings; these were intended mainly for insertion as illustrations into manuscript devotional books. As with most early printmakers, many of his designs survive only in copies by others, and many have doubtless not survived at all.

Some of his presumed pupils have been given names, such as the Master of the Nuremberg Passion, the Master of 1446, and the Master of the Banderoles. If the Master also practiced as a painter, whether on panel or in manuscript illuminations, no identification of any of his works has been generally accepted.