French School, 17th Century

Oscar and Maria Salzer, Los Angeles;
By whom given to the Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science,1983 (Acc. FMM 82.32).

Los Angeles, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California; Seattle, WA, Seattle Art Museum; Honolulu, HI, Honolulu Academy of Art; Santa Barbara, CA, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Reality and Deception, 16 October 1974 – 20 April 1975, cat. no. 33, reproduced (as Jean Hemau);
Columbus, OH, Columbus Museum of Art; West Palm Beach, FL, Norton Gallery of Art,  More Than Meets the Eye: The Art of Trompe l'Oeil, 7 December 1985 – 27 April 1986, cat. no. 19, reproduced p. 70 (as Jean Hemau);
Nagoya, Nagoya City Art Museum; Bunkamura, The Bunkamura Museum of Art; Hyogo, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Visual Deception, 11 April 2009 - 3 November 2009, cat. no. 27, reproduced p. 65 (as Jean Hemau).

Portraits of Objects, Oscar and Maria Salzer Collection of Still Life and Trompe-L'Oeil Paintings, Fresno 1984, cat. no. 22, reproduced (as Jean Hemau).

Tightly relined and surface has been a bit pressed as a result. the paint surface is generally well retained and the detail remains very good in the still life elements. there is a slight degree of abrasion in the brown background withing the faux wood frame. under UV: there are scattered retouchings all around the faux wood frame, mostly concentrated at the right side. still life elements look good with only some very small retouches here and there and some inpainting of craquelure. small retouches can be seen in brown background and in the dark shadow on inside of the faux frame at left and upper left. painting is presentable as is and there is no need for further work. In a plain brown frame with light gilding to outer rim.
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This painting was long mistakenly attributed to Jean Hemau, the name inscribed on the banderole of the playing card.  Hemau was, in fact, one of the earliest makers of playing cards.  He was active in the early 17th Century in Epinal, a town on the Moselle River in northeast France that was an early center of print making, including the printing of tarot and playing cards.  The artist of this work has given us a highly accurate representation of Hemau's unique card designs with the lozenge pattern on the top side and his signature yellow banderole on the face cards.