The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds
Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) · c. 1636-1640
Four people sit at a card table and three of them are working together against the fourth. On the left a man slides an ace of diamonds from his belt behind his back, holding it flat where only we can see it. In the centre a courtesan in a gold-and-pearl headdress turns her eyes sideways in a look of pure signal, while the maid leaning in with a glass of wine completes the circuit between them. On the right sits the victim, a plump young man in scarlet and gold with a pile of coins in front of him, absorbed in his own hand and noticing nothing. The subject is the parable of the prodigal son secularised into three vices: gaming, wine and lust.
La Tour is famous for candlelit night scenes, but this is a daylight picture, and its power comes from stillness. The figures barely move; the drama is carried entirely by eye direction, and the geometry of glances runs left to right across the canvas until it stops dead at the oblivious young man. Enjoy the textures, the crisp gold braid, the striped turban, the ostrich feather, the pearls and the reflections in the wine, all painted with a smooth enamel surface and a strictly limited palette of reds, golds and blacks.
La Tour, who worked in the Duchy of Lorraine and was celebrated in his lifetime, was then forgotten so completely that he had to be reconstructed by scholars from 1915 onwards. A closely related version with an ace of clubs, now in the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas, is the picture often confused with this one. The Louvre acquired the present canvas in 1972 after it was classified as a national treasure.
Did You Know? La Tour's name vanished from art history for more than two centuries until a German scholar reassembled his work in 1915, which is why a painter of this quality has no eighteenth-century reputation.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.