Month: April 2022

Jean Dodal Tarot (a hand-crafted masterpiece by Justin Michael and Shell David)

On By benebellIn deck review, tarot, tarot community3 Comments

This masterpiece reproduction of the Jean Dodal Tarot by Justin Michael and Shell David (of East Tarot) is everything to me right now. It’s a fixture on the corner of my personal reading desk and when I’m catching up with old friends via zoom video calls, I’ll reach for this particular deck, sling some cards while we virtual-klink wine glasses, and read about Life.

I wish I could tell you that they’re selling these and you can buy one for yourself, but I’m not sure. You’ll need to reach out to either Justin Michael or Shell David directly to find out. Whatever the cost, having just one of such decks is worth your investment.

It becomes that prized tool. You’re not paying for just another tarot deck for your collection. Something like this is special. It’s the artisan craftsmanship and the personal touch that you’re investing in, which I truly believe is converted into energy and gets infused throughout the deck.

Dating back to around 1701, the Jean Dodal deck, one of the early iterations of the Tarot de Marseille tradition of tarots, were printed from woodcut engravings and hand-colored by stencil, produced primarily for export. Shell David’s restoration project is top notch, and Justin Michael’s printing and production– just, wow.

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Petit Etteilla, Paris: H. Pussey, 1860-1886 (32-card piquet pack download)

On By benebellIn cartomancy, create your own deck, divination, Etteilla Tarot, free download5 Comments

What we call the “Petit Etteilla” refers to a class of 32-card piquet decks for cartomancy based on Etteilla’s 1770 text, which used the courts (Kings, Queens, Jacks), Aces, Tens, Nines, Eights, and Sevens from a playing card deck. To the 32-card pack, Etteilla added a 33rd card called “Etteilla” to designate the querent. And thus he proposed that the original Egyptian tarot pack consisted of 33 cards.

UPDATE: I referred to this deck as a “Petit Etteilla” because that’s how the British Museum referred to it. However, one of our community’s preeminent tarot historians, with a particularly vast amount of knowledge on the Etteilla, John Choma, came back with some clarifications.

This is not a Petit Etteilla deck, but an unrelated deck called the “Livre du Destin” (or Book of Fate), created some time in the mid-1800s. You can check out a few historic examples (thank you, John, for the links!): here (M. Violet, éditeur), here (Le Livre du destin), and here. These images are also notably similar to other 19th-century oracle decks like the 53-card Sibylle des Salons and the 36-card Petit Cartomancien.

This download of Petit Etteilla card images, courtesy of the British Museum, is the edition published between 1860 and 1886 by Jean-Henri Pussey in Paris, France. The originals were 70 mm x 111 mm, hand-colored etchings on pasteboard.

Petit Etteilla

(Originals, 70 mm x 111 mm)

CLICK ON LINK TO DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE

If you’re savvy with digital photo editing and graphic design, then work directly from the 70 mm x 111 mm originals, and format the layout design to your personal preferences.

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Progress Notes on My Etteilla Tarot Redux

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot4 Comments

You can ignore the misalignment issue with the card numbers (like what you see above between 7 and 8) because I need to change the layout design entirely.

Above for reference you’ll find Cards 7 & 8 from Etteilla II on the left and how they look in Etteilla III on the right (these are illustrations from the Lemarchand text). I’m slowly translating the card meanings found in the Orsini and Lemarchand texts from French to English for the guidebook.

Eighteen cards in and I realize my initial vision for the layout design is not going to work. The font size right now is at 64 pts. By my estimations, it needs to be at 85 pts.

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Etteilla Tarot Reconstruction: Sacred Seven in the Coins

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, tarot card meanings, tarot community8 Comments

I previously posted my first complete drafts of the first seven Major Arcana cards in my reinterpretation of the Etteilla Tarot, here.

Instead of continuing on to the second septenary of Majors, in order, I realized that practically speaking, I had better try my hand on some of the pips early on, because the last thing I want to happen is to finish the artistic labor for all the Majors then start on the pips, only to realize I hated the direction I was going in and having to abandon the project altogether, after all that work had already been done.

So I thought, okay, let me see if I can even come up with a good approach to the pip cards first, before committing to this deck project.

But where do I start? I started at the tail end of the deck (but not Card 78 or Key 0 The Fool). I started with Card 77, the Ace of Coins, then worked backward to Card 76, the Two of Coins, Card 75, the Three Coins, and so on.

This blog post will showcase the first drafts of the seven Coins cards corresponding with the Sacred Seven (in the order of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).

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