Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
King of Helmets, from The Small Playing Cards of Master ES
Master ES German
Not on view
The King of Helmets, holding a scepter that establishes his authority, confronts his symbol with intensity.
The Small 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: Animals, Shields, Helmets, and Flowers
13 cards in each suit: King, Queen, Upper Knave, Under Knave, 9 through 1
52 cards, of which about 15 survive
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