Hand-painted Italian Fortune Telling Cards, undated

Item — Box: 3, item: 10

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

This collection contains decks of playing cards that were collected by Edwards H. Metcalf. The decks range in dates from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s. Many different card games are included in the collection, such as Man-Chu, fortune telling, and court.

Dates

Creation: undated

Conditions Governing Access

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Biographical / Historical

Tarot cards were likely created in northern Italy in the late 14th-century to early 15th-century. They started as a card gane and by the early 18th-century were used for divinatory purposes. The earliest tarot cards were hand-painted. This deck is printed but hand-painted in color. There is no indication of where in Italy is was printed, but the styles of the drawings are almost identical to the other Italian tarot deck in this collection (Box 3, Item 6), so it can be inferred that the two are related.