Colored woodcuts. The cards 10.7 x 5.5 cm. 0.13 kg (weighed in the sleeves).

Rudolstädter Biedermeier playing cards, manufacturer: playing card factory Carl Andreas Bianchi (Rudolstadt), design: 1814, probably produced 1814-16. Face cards with bourgeois figures, the pip cards have animal motifs. German single face card with standing kings. Grün-Daus: Woman with an anchor on a pedestal, on it the letters "CB" in capitals [Carl Bianchi], below the designation "Incizo Jacquier" (draughtsman), also to be found on Schellen 7. The pictorial design influenced by the period (e.g. Schellen-Daus: eagle with a crown of rays, probably alluding to Napoleon). The cover paper with the famous Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt double-headed eagle, with the imprint "No. 2" at the head and the inscription "Spiel-Karten-Fabrik / C. A. Bianchi in Rudolstadt." In modern protective sleeves. The tax stamps have been cut out of the Daus heart and the wrapping paper, otherwise unused.

The Bianchi family of merchants, who had lived in Rudolstadt since 1734 and came from Lake Como, were active in various trades in Rudolstadt. In 1806, Carl Andreas Bianchi (1778-1853) was able to take over the playing card factory founded by Johann Daniel Thom in June 1798 and sold on to the bookseller Gottlieb Klüger (Langbein & Klüger publishing house), who had moved from Arnstadt, in 1800. in 1809, the product portfolio was expanded to include colored papers, which were intended not only for the domestic market but also for export. At times, the factory employed up to 60 people, but had to cease production in 1844 under the management of Carl Bianchi's son Georg Cäsar Bianchi due to increasingly unfavorable customs conditions and limited itself to selling off stock.

Literature : Deubler, Heinz: Playing cards from Rudolstadt. On the history of the Carl Bianchi playing card factory (1806-1844), in: Rudolstädter Heimathefte (32nd vol. March/April 1986), pp. 69-71.