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Mythologische speelkaarten
Catalogue information
LastDodo number
4228133
Area
Prints / graphics
Title
Mythologische speelkaarten
Artist
Technique
Year
1644
Print run
Signed
Publisher
Dimensions
Printing office
Theme
Details
These mythological playing cards were made in order of Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, and designed by the famous artist Stefano Della Bella (1610-1664). The 199 cards were designed to teach history, geographie, and mythology to the young king Louis XIV.
Seventeenth-century city dwellers bought prints as casually as we buy postcards and weekly magazines, and della Bella’s were particularly popular. Eighteenth-century collectors competitively filled vast cabinets and scrapbooks with thousand-odd della Bella etchings, minute to large. Rather neglected in the nineteenth century – tastes had changed – della Bella’s prints become of broader interest when they are considered as a reflection of his life and times. He worked with his sketchbook and etching needle much the way a magazine photographer works today with his camera.
Complete sets of the 199 playing cards are in the collecion of the British Museum and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
These are the eight engravings:
1. P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphosis; title page. 3½" x 2¾”
Publius Ovidius Naso (called Ovid) was a Roman poet. Metamorphoses is considered as his magnum opus.
2. Anguiparum Meduse caput praescundit Perseus (Perseus killing Medusa); 2 1/10" x 2½”
3. Cephalus et iaculo inevitabili, et cane pernicißimo a Procride donatur (Procris giving Cephalus a dog and a javelin); 2 1/10" x 2½”
4. Daedalus et Icarus novae aves (Daedalus en Icarus new birds); 2 1/10" x 2½”
5. Euridice (respiciente Orpheo) ad inferos revocatur (Orpheus looking back at Eurydice); 2 1/10" x 2½”
6. Neßus Dianiram rapiens telo ab Hercule configitur (Nessus attempting to take Dejanera form Hercules); 2 1/10" x 2½”
7. Iudicium Paridis (judgement of Paris); 2 1/10" x 2½”
8. Iuno (Juno); 2 1/10" x 2½”