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Knave of Men, from The Large Playing Cards of Master ES
Master ES German
Not on view
The Master ES may have based his suit figure on an image in a contemporary manual of fencing.
The Large Playing Cards of Master ES
Another Upper Rhenish engraver who followed in the wake of the Master of the Playing Cards is known as the Master ES, after the monogram with which he signed many of his works. In the early 1460s, he produced two sets of engraved playing cards, The Small Playing Cards and The Large Playing Cards. As in The Courtly Hunt Cards, each suit of the small deck has four face cards: king, queen, upper knave, and under knave; the pip cards run from 9 through 1, fifty-two in all. Both decks were copied within a decade by the Netherlandish engraver Israhel van Meckenem.
Suits: Men, Hounds, Birds, and Shields
12 cards in each suit: King, Queen, Upper Knave, Under Knave, 9 through 2
48 cards, of which about 41 survive
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