A Material World | Game of Thrones. Early Modern Playing Cards and Portrait Miniature Painting
This talk by Professor Karin Leonhard explores 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.
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?
This event is part of the series A Material World, 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.
