The earliest woodcuts in Europe (13th century) were printed patterns on textile, followed in about 1400 by prints on paper, such as single sheet devotional prints, and playing cards like these. The oldest surviving examples of playing cards date to about 1420. This sheet is thought to have been made by an artist called F. Durand in Rouen or Lyons in the first half of the 16th century. It has not yet been cut, showing the way in which cards were made for economy, printed many to a sheet and cut at a later stage.

Printed playing cards were sometimes coloured by hand but stencils might be used to speed the process up. The neat, shaped blocks of colour seen here sometimes do not match with the area meant to take the colour, indicating that the colour was applied through a stencil rather than painted on freehand. This colouring is of a high quality, suggesting that this pack was intended for a well-off client.

The names on these cards include legendary and historical figures, including Bethsabée and Pallas among the queens and some of the Nine Worthies among the kings. The Nine Worthies were trios of pagan, Jewish and Christian heroes introduced by Jacques de Longuyon in his romance Voeux de Paon of 1312. They were seen as exemplars of chivalry and knightly prowess and aristocratic rulers sometimes associated themselves symbolically with one or other of them. The Worthies included here among the kings are David, shown with his harp, and Charlemagne, with his globe symbolising his status as the first Holy Roman Emperor. Although playing cards and their suits were not standardized at this time and varied according to region and the whim of designers, these names were starting to become standard on French picture cards by this date.