Public-domain card archive

Face cards were never fixed.

Before today’s mirrored kings, queens, and jacks became familiar, court cards reflected local suits, political regimes, printing methods, costumes, and advertising. These scans are linked to museum or repository records that identify them as public domain.

01ca. 1435–40

Open collection record

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.429

The Queen of Flowers

Master of the Playing Cards

Provenance

German engraving printed from two plates. Acquired by The Met through the Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg and Harris Brisbane Dick funds in 2006. The Met marks the image Public Domain.

Why it matters

This queen comes from the earliest substantial group of engraved playing cards. Its naturalistic flower suit predates the standardized French suits and shows how court ranks circulated through luxury printmaking.

02ca. 1475–80

Open collection record

The Met Cloisters, 1983.515.40

King of Nooses

South Netherlandish artist

Provenance

One card from the only known complete fifteenth-century illuminated ordinary deck. Made in Burgundian territories on four-layer pasteboard with ink, opaque paint, glazes, silver, and gold. The Met marks the image Public Domain.

Why it matters

The deck's hunting-equipment suits and extravagant Burgundian clothing show that early European packs were local visual systems, not early versions of today's hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

031810

First French Empire King of Hearts, 1810

Open collection record

Bibliothèque nationale de France, PET FOL-KH-34 (C, 28)

First French Empire King of Hearts

After Jacques-Louis David; drawn by Angélique Mongez; engraved by Bertrand Andrieu

Provenance

A Gallica scan of an engraved Paris deck preserved by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Wikimedia Commons identifies the faithful reproduction and underlying work as public domain.

Why it matters

Revolutionary and Napoleonic governments repeatedly replaced the old royal figures. This Empire pack recasts court cards as approved historical and classical figures, making political authority visible at the card table.

041820–30

Open collection record

British Museum, 1896,0501.963

Tudor and Oriental Court Pack

Unidentified British publisher

Provenance

A hand-colored lithographed, single-ended pack of 51 surviving cards on pasteboard. The British Museum collection record traces the object; Wikimedia Commons identifies this mechanical scan as public domain.

Why it matters

The historical figures in three suits and orientalized diamond court show the nineteenth-century appetite for themed transformation packs. Court cards could carry narrative and costume while remaining playable.

05mid-19th century

Open collection record

Public-domain scan of the artist's Russian deck studies

Atlasnye Court-Card Studies

Adolf Charlemagne

Provenance

Studies by Russian painter Adolf Charlemagne, who died in 1901. Commons identifies the scanned two-dimensional work as public domain and free of known restrictions in the United States.

Why it matters

Charlemagne's figures became the basis of the enduring Russian Atlasnye pattern. The studies reveal how drawing, simplification, and strong silhouettes turn court costume into legible mass-produced cards.

061888

King of Spades, Duke Playing Cards, 1888

Open collection record

The Met, Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, 63.350.204.84.53

King of Spades, Duke Playing Cards

W. Duke, Sons & Co.

Provenance

A commercial color lithograph issued in a 53-card cigarette-premium series. Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met marks the image Public Domain.

Why it matters

Industrial color printing let card imagery become advertising. The recognizable double-ended king remains playable while the deck itself promotes a national consumer brand, linking cards to modern mass media.