Two of Swords: P.14632-R(25)

Current Location: In storage

Titles

Two of Swords

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Unknown
Publisher: Clarizia, Dionisio

Entities

Playing card

Description

A hand-coloured woodcut of two long swords printed side by side, a short baldric wrapped around. The card is unnumbered. From an incomplete pack, 38 of 40 cards in the Neopolitan pattern, for the game of Ombre. The missing cards are the King of Clubs and the Ace of Clubs. Ombre, a card game which originated in Spain in the 16th century, uses a stripped deck where all the 8, 9 and 10 ranks are missing. These cards were made in Salerno in southern Italy in 1881 (See Ace of Coins), where cards with Spanish suits were commonly used. Unlike the Italian suits found in northern Italy, swords in the Spanish deck are straight and don't intersect. The backs of the cards feature a design of blue chevrons around a central oval-shaped medallion containing a double-ended image of a group of buildings, presumably in Salerno, but not identified. The backs of the cards are folded over the edges of the fronts forming a border that is typical of Italian-made cards.
A very similar pack, close in date but made in Naples, is in the collection of the British Museum. See: 1875,1211.172-211. The British Museum pack features the same design on the backs of the cards but with a double-ended image of the Royal Palace in Naples.