Jeu de la Belle Epoque
Jeu de la Belle Epoque, remembering a golden age of optimism, progress and elegance.
La Belle Epoque was a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. This pack, published by J.C. Dusserre, Paris in 1980, presents on the court cards significant individuals from the worlds of art, science and literature of the era who are included in the Grévin [waxwork] Museum in Paris. The pip cards are standard, while the two jokers appear to represent the Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. See the box►
Above: Jeu de la Belle Epoque published by J.C. Dusserre, Paris in 1980.
Overall, La Belle Epoque is often romanticized as a golden age of optimism, progress and elegance, although it also had its share of social inequality and political tensions lurking beneath the surface.
References
Fournier Museum, Playing cards II, France no. 576.
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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