Card Divination Poll

Do you believe cards were used for divination before the 18th century?

  • Yes

    Votes: 66 68.0%
  • No

    Votes: 8 8.2%
  • Don't know enough about the subject to say.

    Votes: 17 17.5%
  • Have looked into this and still don't know.

    Votes: 6 6.2%

  • Total voters
    97

Teheuti

Rosanne said:
Could someone please tell me what this lady is doing with her cards in 1501?
The painting is unnamed, but is commonly referred to as Fortune Teller.
There seems to be some discussion of this painting in German at:
digbib.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/volltexte/documents/2573
or search on Doktorarbeit/ Femina Ludens
p. 62ff
 

Rosanne

Thank you Mary- I will ask BrightEye if she can go look and translate roughly what is said.
~Rosanne
 

Huck

4 pictures of van Leyden, 3 with cards, one with chess

http://germany.intofineart.com/upload1/file-admin/images/Lucas van Leyden1.jpg

http://germany.intofineart.com/upload1/file-admin/images/new8/Lucas van Leyden-937793.jpg

die_kartenlegerin.jpg


leyden-1-660.jpg


****
Portrait of other painter: Margarethe of Austria, possibly (according some speculations mentioned in the German article) the woman of the fortuneteller picture

410px-Bernaerd_van_Orley_002.jpg

****
 

Teheuti

Huck said:
Portrait of other painter: Margarethe of Austria, possibly (according some speculations mentioned in the German article) the woman of the fortuneteller picture
Huck - is that all that is in that article? Is there anything about whether this is actually a picture of a fortune teller or simply a card player like van Leyden's other gaming pictures?
 

Dancing Bear

Rosanne said:
I knew there was something tickling my brain....

Fortune Teller by Lucas van Leyden 1494-1533
http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/work/2144595915

~Rosanne

this is a beautiful painting. I think i may even make this my next project..


I voted Yes.. we cant help ourselves.. there has always been people around like us! Even if we had to hide it .. we were there divining with whatever we could lay our hands on.. as old as card stock is , it wouldnt suprise me if that was how long we have been diving with it,


Rosanne I would also like to know the translation.
This picture is absolutely so lovely.. I have decided i will most defiantely be painting this to go up in my home.

I cannot see this being a normal card game. the lady standing behind is holding a plate, maybe for the fees to be placed upon.
I dont know what the man to the left is giving her, but it does look a bit like something to hold like they would in Psychometry..

Why a crowd throws me a little.. maybe they are all lining up! and curious bystanders. Like they would a fair.. but this is placed in a inn or some courts.. Dont know!!

Please let me know when you hear from brighteye..

But this is definately not an ordinary card game. IMHO anyways. reason being I have studied a bit on this subject in the arts, 1 all the other paintings were of card players and called as such this has cards in it but yet it is called fortune teller by the artist..
like many artists of our time including the 20th century, they always painted to please the politics of the times, like Nostradamus and his codes.
He paints this woman with a cross around her neck. which during the times of the witch hunts this painting would then be accepted ( as Benton did in his painting "city activities with subway") he shows a preacher man amongst the underworld of a city, preaching to rise above it all painted in 1930 a time when all that is depicted in his painted was being challenged.. and illegal or imoral of the time..... I believe this painter liked to paint paintings that had a underlying subject matter, that was contrversial... Look at "Lot and his daughters.. another painting also having a contraversial matter about it... Lot impreganting his daughters whilst drunk. we can look at two sides to both paintings.. The Fortune teller when the witch hunts were on... Leydon was born in the thick of it all, 1494 I cannot find out when this painting was painted I am assuming around the same time as the card players 1506 app:
witch hunts stopped around 1700..

this painting could be saying all types of women could be witches.. this one wears a cross yet she still tells fortunes... this is maybe why it was acceptable to the public..the unveiling of the cleverness of a witch? This is all just my own delving and prying into the artist, the era he was living and the surrounding influences he may have had..
I am not he and not in his head.. but as a lover of art and its history, this is how i would interpret this painting..
I could be wrong and would love other ideas.. But i really do not think this is a mere card game.. I really do think this is of a "The Fortune Teller"
as the painting is titled.


I feel the need to research a few more of his paintings to confirm my thoughts on this artist. But my strong belief is that this young man he may have been religious but he spoke in his paintings far more than the surface image shows.

I will delve more, It may take me a while...

sorry for the long post,
Art just gets me going.!! and delving..another passion of mine :)
 

Huck

Mary,

The author points out, that the first known statement about a "fortuneteller" of an anonymous was given in the year 1842. The author refers to a discussion between Hoffmann and Dummett. Both couldn't identify the "fortuneteller".

The author tells, that a copy of this picture was earlier given to the much earlier painter "Jan van Eyck" and that then Phillipp the Good was taken as the presented male person on this copy.

In the other mentioned opinion the young man is taken as Filibert, duke of Savoy, the second husband of Margaretha of Austria. He also died early, as the first.

http://genealogy.euweb.cz/savoy/savoy3.html#A8

One of the bystanders is identified as a Fool.
 

Teheuti

Huck said:
The author tells, that a copy of this picture was earlier given to the much earlier painter "Jan van Eyck" and that then Phillipp the Good was taken as the presented male person on this copy.
The van Eyck/Phillip-the-Good picture has been mentioned in several tarot books. Still, it's not really clear if it is fortune-telling or not. Although the Fool with his bauble seems to indicate a possibility.

Thanks for the additional info.

Margaret of Austria was a fascinating person. I'm glad to find out about her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_of_Austria_(1480-1530)
 

Rosanne

No date for the painting Huck?
The lady is handing to or taking a rose branch from the the man- which indicates to me this is a question of Love. Cartomancy not card playing I would imagine.
~Rosanne
 

Teheuti

Rosanne said:
No date for the painting Huck?
The lady is handing to or taking a rose branch from the the man- which indicates to me this is a question of Love.
Is it a rose or could it be another flower?

I was just reading about the triumphal procession that followed her marriage to Phillip of Savoy (1503):
"John Palluat, head of the municipality, made a lengthy
speech according to the fashion of the time, full of
whimsical expressions, puns and witticisms, comparing
Princess Margaret's qualities with those of the flower
that bore her name."
What flower is this? Could it be the one in the picture?

The ducal procession included all kinds of allegorical displays from myth: Hercules, St. George, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Medea, and four girls in the turrets of a tower representing goodness, obedience, reason, and justice.

They lived in Bourg & in Turin along the route from France to Italy (and were keepers of the Veil of Turin). It was Duke Philibert (Phillip) who allowed the passage of French troops and King Louis through Turin on their way to Milan. The Duke (and his wife??) then accompanied the king to Milan. (Ah, the Milan-connection!)

http://www.archive.org/stream/firstgovernessof00tremuoft/firstgovernessof00tremuoft_djvu.txt

Added:
"As the widow of Duke Philibert, she com-
posed the famous motto which we find reproduced
everywhere on the tombs, walls, woodwork, and
stained-glass windows of the church at Brou :

FORTUNE . INFORTUNE . FORT . UNE.

And this was her last motto, which she kept to the
end. This enigmatical inscription has been variously
interpreted. Cornelius Agrippa, her panegyrist, and
Gropheus, Chevalier d'Honneur to the princess, who
composed a Latin poem in her praise in 1532, saw
no other meaning in this device than the resume of
her life ... a plaything of fortune ; and they explain
the word 'infortune' by the third person of the present
indicative of the verb 'infortuner,' Fortuna Infortunat
Fortiter Unam ' La fortune infortune (tries, per-
secutes) fort une femme.' Guichenon adopts this
version and says the princess composed her device
Ho show that she had been much persecuted by
fortune, having been repudiated by Charles VIIL, and
having lost both her husbands, the Prince of Castile,
and the Duke of Savoy."
 

Dancing Bear

I think this thread is so interesting
and has many links and a discussion about a very similar thing the time line and dating of cards being used for divination. even though the thread starts off about a book accompanied with cards .. in 1500's

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=31299