We find ourselves in a kitchen where a young woman stretches out on a chair as the Tarot card reader explores her fortune. It’s funny, isn’t it? No matter how many centuries separate us, the pose for expansive day-dreaming remains unchanged! This particular illustration of Tarot in art is by Read more…
If a court card coming up in a Tarot reading can present a reader with a tummy-flipping moment of panic, then interpreting a reversed court card can engender a fully-fledged head-between-the-knees (your own, silly!) brace position. But it needn’t be so! Any card coming up as a reversal is basically Read more…
So, I’m out having a totally 3 of Cups moment with two girlfriends – celebrating my friend’s 60th birthday and having a jolly nice time at a discreet and ‘spensive restaurant. We are just perusing the extensive menu when I happen to glance over the balcony (that’s how posh it Read more…
Not done one of these for a while and thought that this one by The Beautiful South would be a great tune to jump-start things again. Having a think about the behaviour of characters in books and films can help flesh out your court cards – so why not songs Read more…
Another Renaissance deck for you to drool over! The majority of cards in this deck have been lost and the surviving cards – 16 Major Arcana cards and a Page of Swords – can be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. There they are attributed to Jacquemin Gringonneur as Read more…
I first fell under the spell of Salvador Dali via his magnificent Christ of St John which was bought (amidst great public hooha – petitions and irate letters to the newspapers) for Glasgow City Council’s Kelvingrove Museum in the 1950s. I regularly visit the museum to visit the quiet and Read more…
From the workshop of Benifacio Benbo, Il Re di Coppe, Visconti Sforza Tarot Yeah, there’s so much of the figure missing that when I looked at this image I thought the King was actually lying in a box with only his legs sticking out. As if he had been SLIGHTLY Read more…
If a picture is worth a thousand words, why not use images to help secure the meanings of the court cards in your head? To this end, I thought we could KICK off today (see what I did there?!) with an exploration of the Tarot Queens through the medium of Read more…
I recently bought a handful of Marseilles-type Tarot decks and the Ancient Tarots of Lombardy is one of them. This design dates from 1810, according to the box. It is published by Lo Scarabeo and comes with the LWB details (written by Giordano Berti) on cards, rather than a leaflet. Read more…
I don’t know about you, but I’m increasingly drawn to antique Tarot decks and this Ancient Italian Tarot from Lo Scarabeo is currently one of my favourites. I believe that the original engravings for this deck were made by a prominent Milanese engraver named Carlo Dellarocca. This is the 1880 Read more…