Peaceful Card Players

Card Players (1635) by the Dutch Golden Age painter Jan Miense Molenaer. Probably peasants are playing cards, women are watching and a boy is playing with a dog. It’s a peaceful scenery; gambling is here a decent leisure to pass time.

Oriental Amusement

Almehs playing Chess in a Café by the French Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. An idyllic exotic scenery, but also indicating that the girls are not stupid like many of the popular odalisques.

Who’s the Winner

"Winner take all", cover of a pulp magazine of the 1960s. Interesting is, that the woman is painted here in the traditional pose of fortuna. She’s seductive and promising. Sure that the prize is not the money. But she’s also deceptive and I don’t think that there will be a winner at all.

The Avengers

Here Emma Peel in the legendary television series the Avengers. This so called "Chess board Intro" was specially produced for ABC network in the United States in 1966.

Of course the Avengers are playing chess, the great strategic game.

Symbol of Death

The ace of spades is often seen as a symbol of death and is known in popular folklore as the "death card". Therefore it’s popular in the military to decorate tanks, airplanes and other stuff. Here a destroyed British tank in World War One, probably part of the British 12th Division.