The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs

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The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs: Georges de La Tour

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Georges de La Tour Oil Painting - The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs

Keywords: Cheat, Ace, Clubs

Work Overview: The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs
Georges de La Tour
c. 1630-34
Oil on canvas
38 1/2 x 61 1/2 in. (97.8 x 156.2 cm) Framed: 49 x 72 x 5 in. (124.5 x 182.9 x 12.7 cm)

The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs is Georges de la Tour's masterpiece in which the cheat at the left of the composition tips his cards toward the viewer, who thereby becomes complicit in the scheme, knowing that in the next moment, the conniving trio of cheat, maidservant, and courtesan (identified by her low-cut bodice) will prevail.

One of the greatest masterpieces of seventeenth-century French art, Georges de La Tour’s Cheat with the Ace of Clubs takes as its subject the danger of indulgence in wine, women, and gambling. While the theme harks back to Caravaggio’s influential Cardsharps, also in the Kimbell, the roots of this engaging morality play can be traced to earlier representations of the biblical subject of the prodigal son. La Tour’s dazzling colors and elaborate costumes create a brilliant tableau. His characters enact a psychological drama that unfolds through the cues of their sidelong gazes and the measured gestures that signal their next moves. The cheat tips his cards toward the viewer, who thereby becomes complicit in the scheme, knowing that in the next moment, the conniving trio of cheat, maidservant, and courtesan (identified by her low-cut bodice) will prevail. Another autograph version of this subject, Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds (Musée du Louvre, Paris), displays abundant variations in details of color, clothing, and accessories. For most of his life, La Tour remained in his native duchy of Lorraine, remote from Paris. Although he created some of the most visually compelling images of his age, soon after his death he fell into obscurity. It was only in the early twentieth century that his oeuvre began to be rediscovered.

The only diurnal painting by Georges de La Tour in the Louvre along with the Saint Thomas, the Cheat illustrates a theme that was frequently taken up in the wake of Caravaggio. The young man is subjected here to three major temptations according to 17th-century moral standards: gambling, wine, and lust. Another version with notable variations is known to exist, the Cheat with the Ace of Clubs (Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum).
1972, the year of La Tour’s renaissance
One of George de La Tour’s masterpieces and a classic of French painting, the Cheat occupies a particular place among the artist’s works for several reasons. Purchased in 1926 by Paul Landry from an antique dealer on the Île Saint-Louis, the painting bearing the artist’s handsome signature, was made public by Hermann Voss, in 1931, in an article that was to deliver the artist from the depths of oblivion. In this respect, the Louvre painting is one of La Tour’s “firsts.” In 1934, the Cheat featured in the memorable exhibition of the Painters of Reality (Peintres de la réalité) that brought French 17th-century painting back to glory and marked the revival of Georges de La Tour. This sparked a growing craze for the artist and the corpus of his works broadened. Lastly, the year 1972 saw the first monographic exhibition devoted to the painter. It was a huge success and, on this occasion, Landry donated the work to the Musée du Louvre.
The fleecing of the young man
Four figures are gathered around a table and are playing cards. They all seem to be suspended in time. On the right, a lavishly dressed man is going through his cards. He is set apart from the other figures and does not share in their complicity, which is visible in their sidelong glances. Slightly off-center, a woman with a sophisticated hairstyle and plunging neckline beckons us with her eyes and hand position toward the left side of the composition where another player, plunged in shadow, is discreetly producing an ace of diamonds from under his belt. To complete the scene, a maidservant is preparing a glass of wine between him and the courtesan. The situation seems quite clear. The young man, drawn into the game by the courtesan not lacking in assets, is intoxicated and will be divested of his possessions by the man on the left. The painting reworks a subject introduced by Caravaggio in a work currently in the Kimbell Art Museum in Forth Worth, the companion piece to the Fortune Teller in the Louvre by the same artist. A canvas similar in subject painted by La Tour (Metropolitan Museum, New York) formed the pendant to the composition in the Louvre, or more probably to an earlier version of it, also in Forth Worth.
Dialogues with the 20th century
In the simplified volumes, the oddness of the composition, and the comical aspect of the subject matter, the Louvre’s Cheat found pride of place in 20th-century sensibility. It is easy to imagine how this work must have fascinated the Cubists in its treatment of mass or the Surrealists with its mysterious character, as did another painting a few years its predecessor: Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters, an anonymous work from the second school of Fontainebleau (Louvre).

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