This event is part of the series A Material World: Work v. Play, which brings together academics and heritage professionals from a wide range of disciplines to discuss issues concerning historical objects, their materials, forms, and functions, as well as their conservation, presentation, display, and reconstruction.
Organisers: Rembrandt Duits (Deputy Curator, The Photographic Collection, The Warburg Institute) and Louisa McKenzie (Associate Fellow, The Warburg Institute).
ONLINE ATTENDANCE FREE VIA ZOOM WITH ADVANCE BOOKING using this link: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/a-material-world-karin-leonhard-2025
Karin Leonhard (Konstanz University): ‘Game of Thrones. Early Modern Playing Cards and Portrait Miniature Painting’
In Tudor England portrait miniatures were frequently painted on playing cards. Precise instruction is provided by Edward Norgate: “Take an ordinary playing card, polish it, and make it so smooth as possibly you can (the white side of it); make it everywhere even and clean from spots, then choose the best abortive parchment, and cutting out a piece equal to your card, with fine and clean starch paste it on the card. Which done, let it dry; then making your grindstone as clean as may be, lay the card on the stone, the parchment side downward, and then polish it on the back side; it will make it much the smoother. You must paste your parchment so that the outside of the skin may be outward, it being the smoothest and best side to work on.” But is the playing card only an arbitrary picture support that was selected by painters mainly for its specific material qualities? The article is devoted to the relationship between painters of coats of arms and miniature painters in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, as well as the question whether there is more behind the choice of “ordinary” playing cards than first meets the eye.
Karin Leonhard is Professor for Art History at Konstanz University, with a focus on Dutch Art History and Theory. Her research interests include the history and theory of space and perspective, light and colour in the early modern period, the methodology of art history, and especially the dialogue between art history and conservation science. Her most recent publication is on the concept of the “Bildfeld” or “campo” in 17th-century nature pieces and still life paintings: The Fertile Ground of Painting. Seventheenth-Century Still Lifes & Nature Pieces, London (Turnout: Harvey Miller Publisher 2020); and (co-editor): Kunstgeschichte, Kunsttechnologie und Restaurierung: Neue Perspektiven der Zusammenarbeit – Art History, Conservation and Conservation Science: New Perspectives for Cooperation (Berlin: Reimer 2024).
Image: “Queen of Stags”, from the earliest known deck of cards, the, “Stuttgart Playing Cards”, circa 1430, 19.1 × 12.1 cm. Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart.
Digital image courtesy of Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart (CC BY).