Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado: Pintores y familias reales / Painters and royal families playing cards.
This large-print/low vision pack, published by Piatnik, displays the works of four of the main portrait painters of the Spanish monarchy housed in the Museo del Prado. The four artists are: Titian, 1488-1576 (clubs); Velazquez, 1599-1660 (spades); Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728-1779 (diamonds); Goya, 1746-1828 (hearts). Self-portraits are presented on the aces, while the court cards show portraits of members of the Hapsburg and Bourbon monarchies. There are two paintings representing the jokers: the first is Diego de Acedo and the second is Sebastian de Morra. Both were court jesters at the court of Philip IV of Spain, and both were painted by Diego Velázquez. Also included is a double-sided information card in Spanish and English.
Above: Museo del Prado: Pintores y familias reales / Painters and royal families playing cards produced by Piatnik, Austria.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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