The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs, c.1630/34 Georges de La Tour (1593-1652)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Georges de La Tour also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

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The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

A pale hand hovers over the green baize, not quite touching, as if the next gesture might set off a small catastrophe. At the left, the young gambler leans in with the eagerness of someone who thinks he is winning. Behind his back, a card already waits in the cheat’s hidden hand. That concealed ace is the painting’s sharp intake of breath.

Georges de La Tour stages this little drama like theatre, but with the hush of a chapel. Space is shallow, the table pushed up to the picture plane so we feel uncomfortably near. Watch how the conspiracy travels: the cheat turns his head toward the women, the courtesan meets his glance, and the maidservant slides wine into the story as neatly as another card. Their communication is almost silent, made of sidelong looks and economical fingers. One might imagine the faint clink of glass and the thick, warm air of a room where money changes hands.

Color does much of the acting. Tour sets creamy flesh against deep carmine sleeves and a smoulder of ochre and umber in the men’s costumes. The red feathered headdress of the courtesan is not merely decorative; it is a flare of warning, as assertive as her low-cut bodice. Meanwhile the cheat’s sash of inky blue tightens his torso like a bandage. Even the cards flash their small whites with a cold, clinical crispness.

Look closely at the paint around the table edge: it is not fussy. A slightly dry, dragged stroke catches the light, making the cloth feel rubbed and handled, as if many evenings have worn it down. Faces, by contrast, are smoothed into porcelain calm. That tension – tactile table, impassive people – makes the deceit feel practiced.

The subject nods to Caravaggio’s Cardsharps (also at the Kimbell Art Museum), and the lineage of moral tales about the prodigal son lingers in the background. Yet Georges de La Tour is cooler than Caravaggio, less brawling, more controlled. Perhaps that is what unsettles: nobody here needs to raise their voice. Tour alone makes us complicit, because we see the tipped cards and cannot unsee them. And when you step away, the quiet continues, like a secret you have been made to keep.