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Posts tagged ‘Tarot de Marseille’

Sep 10

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A Guide to Reading with the Tarot de Marseille

One of my favorite tarot bloggers, Wayne Limberger at ParsifalsWheelDivination.org, has come out with a guide to reading with the Tarot de Marseille (available at Lulu.Com). The author has been reading tarot for the public with the Thoth and Waite Smith decks for forty years, and has been blogging for nearly a decade. He knows how disorienting it can be to try reading with a deck that not only has no scenes on forty cards, but was created for playing a game with no reference to astrology, Qabala, or any other esoteric framework the reader might be familiar with. If you want to experiment with the Tarot de Marseille, Limberger provides a practical handbook filled with advice from an experienced reader who understands the struggle to read with those strange and abstract Tarot de Marseille cards.

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Aug 25

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Two Interviews with Yves Reynaud


In case you’re new to the Tarot de Marseille world, let me introduce Yves Reynaud, a card maker based near Marseille, France, who produces facsimiles of rare and historic Tarot de Marseille decks. So far, he has produced eighteen French and Swiss decks, many of which only exist as a unique copy in a museum or private collection.

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Jan 6

Vachier: The Oldest Documented Tarot de Marseille

A flurry of excitement rippled through the tarot world in early 2023 when a previously unknown Tarot de Marseille, dated 1639, was auctioned in Paris. This very special deck is the earliest documented TdM we know of, and is in nearly pristine condition.

When it sold for a very large sum, I lamented that it would probably disappear into the vault of a private collector, not to be seen again in my lifetime. Happily, I was very wrong. It was purchased by card maker Yves Reynaud of Marseille, who has given the world many facsimiles of rare TdMs. Recently, he published a lightly touched up version of the Vachier deck, which is now available to purchase.

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Apr 29

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Loving Pierre Madenié

Hundreds of decks have passed through my hands during my fifty years with tarot; and I’ve been reading with a few that I really love for decades. But I never became instantly infatuated with a deck until I unboxed the 1709 Pierre Madenié in 2013. This was the first deck I ever purchased from Yves Reynaud, and I was thrilled to own such a faithful reproduction of an historic deck. Adding to the magic, when I opened the package from France, something tiny zipped through the air in front of my face and brushed my cheek. I was sure a tarot fairy had been set free from the package. I knew instantly that this was no ordinary deck!

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Jan 7

The Happiest Tarot Decks

I want start 2024 by showing off the happiest tarot decks in my collection. Let’s face it, some of the people in our pre-20th century decks can be rather grumpy, if not downright mean looking. I must have at least 100 facsimiles of historic decks (I haven’t actually counted them), but I could only find a handful of decks where the figures had consistently pleasant faces. The characters in the decks discussed below look friendly and optimistic, and seem to actually enjoy life. I wouldn’t hesitate to start up a conversation with any of them.

If you have a historic facsimile with happy faces, please share it in the comment section below.

My five choices are all 18th-century decks, from five different countries, made by four contemporary card makers. I’ve listed them in the order they were originally published.

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Oct 28

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Celebrating the Tarot de Marseille Type I

Tarot de Marseille Type I is having its moment in the sun, thanks to several card makers who are recreating these rare decks from museum originals. As far as I know, there are only nine complete, or nearly complete, Type I decks in existence. All but two have been meticulously recreated by artisans in limited editions and are available to purchase. Find contact information for these card makers at the bottom of this article.

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Oct 24

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Journey Through the Trump Cards

Announcing the completion of “Journey Through the Trumps,” a section of this website that traces the 600-year history of each trump card. During this three-year adventure with my co-author Iolon, we looked at how the imagery of each card evolved through the centuries, and how these changes influenced the card’s interpretation.

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Jul 18

The Jean Dodali Tarot Recreated by Sullivan Hismans

The Dodal/Dodali Tarot, one of the earliest and most historically important Tarot de Marseille (TdM) decks, has been beautifully recreated by Sullivan Hismans at Tarot Sheet Revival, after two years of painstaking craftsmanship. Hismans, who gave us recreations of the Budapest and Rosenwald sheets, is a visual artist fascinated by the physical reality of tarot cards and the craft of card making. His process is the same with all his decks – he examines different versions of the cards available in museum databases, takes the elements apart, then alchemically recombines them to create a transformed, but historically accurate deck. Read more

Jan 15

Tarot des Aux Arcs 10 Swords and 2 Cups
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Tarot des Aux Arcs

The deck’s name had me puzzled for a while. It looks French but makes no sense in that language. Then I checked out the creator’s website — Aux Arcs in French is pronounced Ozark, the mountains where the artist lives. Read more

Dec 17

Tarot Hes two of cups

Tarot Hes 1750

When we think of historic tarot decks, the French Tarot de Marseille and early Italian decks quickly come to mind. But I’m ashamed to say that in my nearly twenty years of deck collecting it never occurred to me to think about German tarot decks. Read more

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