Nationality Germany | Name Johann Hechtel | |
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Full Name Johann Kaspar Hechtel Born 1 May 1771 ( 1771-05-01 ) Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany Occupation Businessman, writer, board game designer Died December 20, 1799, Nuremberg, Germany | ||
Johann Kaspar Hechtel (1 May 1771 – 20 December 1799) was a German businessman, owner of a brass factory in Nuremberg, non-fiction writer and designer of parlour games including the prototype for the Petit Lenormand cartomancy deck. According to published biographies, Hechtel also contributed anonymously to some treatises on physics.
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Early life
Hechtel was born on 1 May 1771 in Nuremberg.
Death
Hechtel died on 20 December 1799 in Nuremberg during a smallpox epidemic and was survived by a wife.
Works
Lenormand cards
In the mid 19th century after the death of the famous French fortune-teller Marie Anne Lenormand, Lenormand's name was used on several cartomancy decks including a deck of 36 illustrated cards known as the Petit Lenormand or simply Lenormand cards still used extensively today. The 36 card Lenormand deck is modelled on a deck of cards published c1799 as part of Das Spiel der Hoffnung (The Game of Hope), a game of chance designed by Hechtel which was still being advertised in 1820. So-called Lenormand decks have the same card numbering, primary symbols and playing card associations as the cards in Hechtel's Das Spiel der Hoffnung game. Some examples of the game are included in an extensive collection of playing cards bequeathed to the British Museum by Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Das Spiel der Hoffnung is listed among Hechtel's works in an advertisement by publisher Gustav Philipp Jakob Bieling of Nuremberg dated 1799.