Karikaturen-Karte. Leipzig, Industrie-Comptoir, n.d. (before 1816).

52/52 playing cards. 85 x 55 mm. Coloured etching.

This is a very early caricature deck. In 1782 Adam Friedrich Gotthelf Baumgärtner (1759-1843) founded a bookshop in Leipzig, which he renamed „Industrie-Comptoir“ a few years later. Since 1809, under the direction of the cardmaker Heinrich Müller, the Industrie-Comptoir also published playing cards, which soon became very popular in Germany according to their high quality. In an advertising from 1811 the Industrie-Comptoir announce a „new German caricature deck“ which is most likely the present one. The Jack of diamonds probably is a caricature of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Schultz / Büchler – Die Spielkarten des Industrie-Comptoirs in Leipzig, No. 38; Bube Dame König, Berlin 1982, 125.

sold