![\"France](\"https:\/\/toddlarkin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Column7.1.jpg\")
<\/a>Anon. (after Philippe de Champaigne), Cardinal Richelieu as the Jack of Diamonds, from France Royale Bridge playing card set, Piatnik Compnay, Vienna, ca. 1990s.<\/p><\/div>\n
The decision to model the figure of the jack of diamonds on Champaigne\u2019s portrait of Cardinal Richelieu was probably motivated by the circumstance that so many copies are held in public collections (e.g. National Gallery, London; Louvre, Paris; National Museum, Warsaw). All of these copies are based on a slightly smaller lost original painted in 1635 for the Galerie des Hommes Illustres (or Gallery of Famous Men) at the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais Royal), Paris. Never reluctant to parade his power and achievements, the cardinal had commissioned the painter to fill his gallery with twenty-six full-length, over life-size portraits of great men of France spanning Abb\u00e9 Suger to Louis XIII. Because this series was engraved shortly after completion, we know something about the appearance of the cardinal\u2019s first portrait, which the London copy most closely resembles.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Philippe de Champaigne, Cardinal Richelieu, 1637 copy after a lost 1635 original.<\/p><\/div>A native of Brussels, Champaigne was familiar with the grand format portraits of the Flemish masters. His Richelieu mimics the pose of Van Dyck\u2019s Genoese clientele of the 1620s: a solitary figure draped in an elaborate vestment consisting of an ermine stole, a voluminous red cappa magna<\/em> (or mantle), a white rochet<\/em> (narrow-sleeved, lace-edged over-garment), and a red cassock extends one hand to motion the way with his biretta<\/em> (four-crested cap) and employs the other to gather up the folds of his ponderous garment. The head is a study of the effects of long working hours upon a fifty year-old administrator: gray hair, flaccid flesh, and lined eyes are meticulously rendered to suggest probity and vigilance. The white linen collar, the pale blue ribbon of the Ordre de Saint-Esprit, and lace-edged surplice, lend the form textural variety and signify that the individual is currently engaged on secular matters. The habit is drawn and modeled in a way that seems hard, even brittle at the edges yet fluid on the surfaces, not unlike late Mannerist sculptures. Rendered from a low viewpoint, the figure appears to be composed of solid geometries: the lines of recession intersect with the folds of the garment to demarcate at least four triangular units secured by the right hand. Richelieu\u2019s satisfaction with the portrait can be assumed from the large number of copies in circulation, some of which show the left hand repositioned to assume a florid rhetorical gesture\u2014of the kind that appears on our playing card.<\/p>\n The designation of Richelieu as the third member of the royal suite is especially interesting in light of his political ties to Marie de\u2019 Medici and Louis XIII. Armand Jean du Plessis was educated in Paris, became Bishop of Lu\u00e7on in 1606, served as Secretary of State to Marie de\u2019 Medici and her prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Concino Concini until the latter\u2019s assassination in 1617, was recalled by Louis XIII to negotiate peace with her after a disastrous civil war, and was made Chief Minister to the king in 1624, a position he retained (along with the new title of duc de Richelieu) until his death nearly twenty years later. His principle contribution to the state consisted of centralizing the French monarchy at home by limiting the resources of rebellious nobility and increasing its strength abroad by pursuing diplomatic alliances meant to frustrate Austro-Spanish hegemony. Yet the Bourbons never completely trusted him and the nobles and commons downright despised him. Marie de\u2019 Medici regarded Richelieu\u2019s service to her son as a threat to her own influence while Louis XIII repeatedly questioned his minister\u2019s draconian and brutal methods.<\/p>\n It is significant that by the early seventeenth century the knave of diamonds had acquired a bad reputation in France and England as a worthless fellow or an evil omen. The French expression \u201cIl est un valet de carreau\u201d (\u201cHe is a knave of [floor] tiles\u201d) suggested a \u201cman of the pavement\u201d or loiterer who sought to take advantage of passers-by; the English epithet \u201cscurvy knave\u201d suggested a sea-faring rascal (in the diamond import business?) who brought his illness back to port to infect inhabitants. Both epithets seem readily applicable to a vigilant minister navigating the “ship of state.” Political personages and state functionaries were first ridiculed on playing cards during the French Revolution, when satires and caricatures flooded the Paris and London markets. Our contemporary card follows this tradition in raising an unfavorable comparison between Richelieu and the n\u2019er-do-well: both had an ominous gaze, were bearded, and sported a deceptively elegant \u201chook,\u201d the cardinal\u2019s curled finger being similar to the knave’s halberd with its serpentine flourish. In a strange twist, the graphic designer gave the queen and her allies a belated, symbolic form of revenge they could never have afforded in life, the cardinal\u2019s double hook at once persuading the great and ensnaring the weak.<\/p>\n But then my grandmother, who was affectionately known as \u201cqueen of the card table,\u201d would have said that whatever \u201chand\u201d I was dealt in life, it was in my interest to make work enjoyable and to take leisure seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you think about it, a deck of playing cards has a tactility and design like nothing else: the small, stiff paper panels with glossy sides, the faces inscribed with a number or letter and the equivalent in hearts, spades, … Continue reading