Collecting in the wild: Ghislain Swimberghe with Brugge artwork

  In the last few years, most of my collecting has been via Ebay and some contacts. I haven't been out "in the wild" looking for decks so much. 

In early July, while site seeing in Brugge Belgium, my wife and I stopped to look at what might be for sale in a street market.

Tourism in Brugge, Belgium

Site Seeing in Brugge

a street market

We found a few card things of interest. Most fascinating was a complete mint condition deck of playing cards by carta mundi called Zandstraat Brugge. Artwork by Ghislain Swimberghe. It's a limited edition certified to have only 2000 copies.  Here's the back of the deck.

 

The back of a Deck of Cards

The deck has 20 jokers. Each suit had the 7 through king (roi) plus the ace (one). The cards are in French so V, D, and R: valet, dame, and king.  

Front of the Playing cards with the box

Each card had an original drawing on it, presumably of Brugges. All by Ghislain Swimberghe.

What more do I know about this deck?

The World Wide Playing Card Museum (online) has a description of the Brugge Deck.

The World of Playing Cards does not seem to reference it at all.

I haven't found any authoritative descriptions of the artist, Ghislain Swimberghe. There is info on his oil and watercolor paintings which appear on auction site.  

 I'll place these jokers in my classic art section.   Another related section, newly created, is European artists, writers, and composers