Piatnik Tarock

Piatnik Tarock Cards

Deck of "Industrie und Glück" or "Rural Scenes" tarock cards manufactured by Ferd Piatnik & Söhne, Vienna, c.1910. The Trumps feature rural scenes and costumes from different regions showing a different scene at each end. Trump II (second row) shows a crowned eagle with a sword and sceptre clasped in one claw, perched on a rock bearing the legend "Industrie und Glück". The Ace of Hearts shows the slightly feint Austrian tax stamp, or 'kartenstempel', showing a two-headed eagle, which was used at that time.

See also: Danish Tarock printed by Piatnik • Bourgeois Tarot.

Above: cards from "Industrie und Glück" or "Rural Scenes" tarock deck manufactured by Ferd Piatnik & Söhne, Hütteldorferstr. 227, Vienna, c.1910. Stencil-coloured.

Left: cards from "Industrie und Glück" or "Rural Scenes" tarock deck printed chromolithographically by Ferd Piatnik & Söhne A.G., Vienna, 1936. (Piatnik added A.G. to it's name from 1917-1939.)

Right: The firm of Ferd Piatnik had a long and varied career including expansion to cities outside Vienna. This Jack of Clubs from an "Industrie und Glück" stencil-coloured tarock deck shows Ferd Piatnik's Hungarian address in Budapest on the lower shield, c.1910. The upper shield reads Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, Hütteldorferstr. 205, Vienna XIII.

The "Rural Scenes" Tarock pattern has also been used as the basis of divinatory fortune-telling cards manufactured in Argentina by Vigor S.R.L. with the title "Cartas Gitanas"►