Uncut Sheet of Hand-colored Biedermeier Era Pictorial Cards

Vienna, 1810. First Edition presumed. Near Fine. Cards made almost certainly in Vienna between 1810 and 1830, each numbered and with a charming vignette illustration, to be used in an unknown game, possibly a Rebus game, although we don't know how such cards could work in multiple Rebuses. The various illustrations are of such things as a well-dressed man admiring a statue of a seraph, two men of different walks of life conversing, a profile of a woman in a veil, three children sledding, a Napoleon legs apSart framing a "B", several dog images, a fox, an ear poised on an arrow, a sunrise in a hilly landscape, etc. The sheet is on woven paper measuring 24 by 38 cm. We believe the sheet was meant to be cut into the smaller cards, each of which would have measured 4.5 by 6.5 cm, more or less. If a Rebus, we have no idea of the solution to the clue given by any of the particular illustrations. But that is of less import to us than this being an uncut specimen of a juvenile card game of some sort from the period that one could say the very concept of childhood was invented, or put another way, when children were appreciated as children as opposed to tiny adults, and when childhood was no longer perceived as just a hurdle to be overcome but rather, a time to relish. And with the new attitude, an emergence of children's literature and games that weren't pietistic. The sheet has uneven, deckled edges, as issued. Some browning along the edges. Minor wear and soiling. (Inventory #: 20077)