Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (Konrad Witz, Switzerland)

Ambraser Hofjagdspiel. Konrad Witz, Switzerland. Full, regular deck (with two jacks per suit), 56 cards. Size: 98mm x 158mm.

Deck make-up:
Falcon lures, falcons, hunting dogs, herons: 1-10, under-jack, over-jack, queen, king.

The Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (Court Hunting Pack of Ambras), also called the "Ambras falconer cards", is a pack of cards painted around 1440-1445 and attributed to the engraver Konrad Witz from Basle, Switzerland. The images are pen and watercolours on pasteboard. Each suit contains ten pip cards with the 10s being represented by a flag/banner (like many old German and modern Swiss playing cards), and four court cards. It seems likely the cards were intended as a collector's item as, in gameplay, the pip images might prove rather difficult to count.

The pack was found in a collection at the Ambras Castle, in Innsbruck, Austria, in the 16th century, and now figures as a precious item in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna.

There are two cards missing from the deck – the 8 of falcons, and the 2 of hunting dogs.

Click on any card to explore the design.

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Card image size, below:     

Falcon lures

Of the four court cards, notice that the two jacks have the suit's characteristic colour in the background (in this case red) but the king and queen have gold.

Falcons

As usual with the Germanic system of unter- and ober-jacks, the suit symbol on the unter is placed low in the card's picture, whereas on the ober, the symbol is displayed higher up...

Hunting dogs

...so, in this suit of dogs, for the court cards, the real dogs mostly change into figurine dogs in order that the unter and ober recipe makes any sense. Lifting up a real dog while on horseback may be rather difficult!

Herons

The heron suit has the nicest pictures, to my eyes. But note that, on some of the cards, the blue colouring which makes up the sky has been applied rather approximately and washes straight over the herons' heads and necks!

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