One of the earliest examples of Playing Cards executed on copper was produced in Germany before 1446. The artist is known only by his initials, and is called "The Master E. S." His cards are original and finely executed, although his emblems stray as far from the ancient ones peculiar to Mercury as the games to be played with them differ from divination. The devices are Roses, Cyclamen, Savages, Birds, Stags, and Lions. This "Master E. S." seems to have copied most of his designs for a smaller set of cards, and he also executed a pack that had Shields, Flowers, Animals, and Helmets for pips. These are artistically grouped, and the escutcheons display coats-of-arms of the nobility that go far to establish the date of those that are not marked. But the pips, although they were gracefully marshaled, were troublesome and confusing to the players, which has caused these cards to be chiefly valued as examples of the graver's art, lacking the simplicity of the French pips, with their harmonious red and black colours, these peculiar designs failed to revolutionise the Playing Cards in common use, as had evidently been the intention of "The Master." The little that is known of "E. S." points to his having been the immediate predecessor of Martin Schongaur, of Colmar, who was the unrivalled engraver of his time, and has been described as the Van Eyck of engraving. He was "the actual creator of the art as practiced in modern times," says Max Lehrs in his essay on the Playing Cards engraved by this master. "To him we owe the technical method of producing the appearance of relief and solidity on a flat surface by the combination of a number of parallel lines on transverse lines, which effect had only been obtainable before his invention by the addition of colour to the finished prints." His home was probably in the vicinity of Freiburg, or Breisach, and it is supposed that he died in 1467. The cards attributed to "E. S." are scattered over Europe, but they seem to be universally acknowledged as the first specimens of _engraved_ Playing Cards. The dainty pictures served as models to the students of the Master, and have often been copied or adopted as accessories to other pictures. The Four of Men and the Ober Knave of the same suit, the Four of Dogs, and the Three of Birds were used to adorn the cover of a Bible that is now in the University Library of Erlangen. These designs were also used in the tooling of other books.