Why did Eliphas Lévi link Le Mat with Shin?

Teheuti

Huck said:
No ... 1810 (beside 1805) was for the Madame Finet deck (in the pdf-file) ...
... http://www.giochidelloca.it/storia/plock.pdf. . . .

Well, ... without knowledge of this material it's likely a little boring to think too much about it.

You are right - I can't seem to think today.

kwaw

From the timeline thread:

1807. “Petit Oracle des Dames” deck, by the veuve (widow) Gueffier, of 42 cards. The designs are partly from a 66 card fortune-telling pack of about 1790 and partly from Etteilla’s tarot pack (DDD p. 143). It had an 82 p. book of instructions, per Kaplan (vol 1 p. 157). Kaplan dates it to 1815 and has pictures. Some of Etteilla’s designs for trumps are here associated with suit cards, small images of which are put in the left bottom corners.

Cerulean

The Grimaud /Frances cartes booklet is almost identical

I have just downloaded the gallica pdf of the Alliette/Etteilla, but haven't checked the contents out. The cover of the gallica.pdf is siilar to the Frances Cartes later 20th century reprint, but in Card 23, there is an additional paragraph of text.

"...Si la tableaux de la Victoire le precede, c'est signe que le questioneur ou la questioneuse saura resister au pouvoir de l'amour; si c'est le contraire, c'est signe que l'amour triomphera."

Oddly, I translate it quickly from the Grimaud/Frances Cartes booklet as follows:

"If the pictorial of Victory precedes (is first), it is the sign the the male or the female questioner would know how to resist the power of love; if it is contrary, it is a sign of love triumphant."

I will check the pdf to see if the Grimaud/ Frances Cartes reproduction booklet has additional items. I do have one card from an original 19th century Petit Oracle des Dames and I think it looks like my reproduction. So far, I believe my Frances Cartes reproduction and pink-covered booklet is very similar to the gallica period pdf and samples of the 1890 cards posted at Christie's auction house.

I agree that Card 23 seems to be almost one figure. The odd card count of the Grimaud/Frances Cartes reproduction says 42 cards and 74 tableaux; the Christie's auction house sample online of the 1890 Petit Oracle des Dames (#152) from the Kaplan collection of 2006 had one card missing, but originally 42 cards with 74 tableaux seems standard for the 1890 version of the Petit Oracle des Dames.

This oracle deck seems a fascinating reflection of the 1890's.

The earlier sample of the Petit Oracle des Dames of 1807 is also at the Christie's website (#150) and it has a sample World card that looks similar to the di Gumppenberg 1806-1811 or the "Neoclassical"--so this oracle deck seems a good indicator, both 1807 and 1890, of images popular around the times they were made.

I am still reading, will add further reflection if I can get this back around to the topics of the thread...just posted this as a note when I saw the direct reference to card #23.

Cerulean

kwaw said:
The booklet, which says '72 colored figures' forming a complete game of 52 cards (the 52 cards of ordinary deck is distributed over the 42 actual (singe and double ended cards) is here:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62270d/f3.image.r=Etteilla.langEN

Yes, they seem to match the descriptions of the booklet very well.

Not sure about its relationship with the Finet (Nouvelle Eteila, ou le petit Nécromancien, Le petit oracle des dames), it is described as a piquet pack, this one contains all 52.

Re: single figures and double, I am not sure that 23 is meant to be viewed as a double figure. Although the image appears to have two parts, the bottom part is not reversed as it is in the double cards - the lwb does not describe it in terms of two tableaux either:

quote:

23. Love, desire
Under the planet venus

Love follows shooting an arrow and has a blindfold over his eyes, but it is a gauze so slight, that the malignant child sees everything perfectly. His garland of flowers serves to hide the features it wishes to arouse. The allegory it holds is Egyptian, and denotes love, or rather desire. There is a kind of glass vase, from the narrow bottleneck of which there escapes a pure flame, distilling incense sacred to Venus. The two snakes that cross it mark the choice and prudence that we should bring in the formation of an alliance. The two cups denote both spouses, one is the father, heralded by the plants it is placed above, the other sterile, that rests on a bare rock. The ace of spades mean love, Venus, enjoyment.
end quote

So we have 11 upright cards, and 31 double; so we have 31x2+11 = 73 ; still one more than the '72 colored figures' mentioned in the booklet. . .

Huck

Teheuti said:
You are right - I can't seem to think today.

Ah, no ...

... you seemed to think, I referred to you ... no, I meant the situation, that there are two decks (Madame Finet deck and 66 cards fortune telling deck in 1790), which seem to play a role in the genesis of the Petit oracle, and which are not reachable. This is boring ... how can we beat the drum, that we get them?

*********

Well, I see the following line of development ...

Stefano della Bella deck Mythology 1644 (52 cards)

Marolles' Ovid translation (with Chaos at begin) ... with 58 pictures

Poilly deck I (41 trumps + 56), likely c. 1660

Poilly deck II (42 cards + 56, ? also around 1660 or 1730) ... (with Chaos as first card; with 58 pictures without number cards)

Poilly deck III (22 cards + 56) ????

Etteilla deck 1788 (with Chaos as first card)

Fortune telling deck c. 1790 (66 cards) ... unknown

Madame Finet deck (1800-1805-1810 ? 36 cards, 4 from Etteilla) ... unknown

Petit Oracle (42 cards with 72/74 pictures) 1807 ... (with Chaos as card 22, the last of the Tarot cards)

... and, if we like, we can go a further deep step back, we can go to the Michelino deck (before 1425), which is in a specific manner the "first known Trionfi deck", but also the first known Mythology deck.

**********

If anybody has problems, what I want to say with the Poilly decks ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=170889

Also I already noted in post #173 in this thread ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=3020298&highlight=poilly#post3020298

Perhaps one should pay attention in the Etteilla questions to an earlier unusual Minchiate deck called "Minchiate Francesi", which was made c. 1730 (if I remember correctly). Material to it is hard to find.

But the first card is "Chaos", as in the Etteilla Tarot ...

************

Here's the Petit Oracle Chaos ...

(the lower part)

and here in an early Etteilla edition

... we have it later (Etteilla III) Grand Etteilla edition 1910

... modified to a Nr. 6 in an Lo Scarabeo deck based on an edition of 1870 (basic design according DDD from 1843, Jeu de la
Princesse) ...
... with the Magician taking the role of the Consultant

And we have an earlier Etteilla III ...

...

and in the Poilly development we had Chaos in the Marolles edition 1655 ...

..., likely made under participation of Poilly and Poilly himself had a Chaos card in Poilly version 2 ...

... and it is clear from this picture about Iason the Argonaut ...

... that Poilly knew Sefano del Bella's Mythology deck (1644):

So it's clear, that there is a complex development with "moving-the-trumps"-elements and with Chaos (all by Poilly or at least by his family), long before Etteilla started his "moving-the-trumps"-experiments and his "Chaos", which finally became the "Consultant" for some time.

Now, interestingly, the Petit Oracle of the Dames 1807 increases this world of change with playing cards, again a new Chaos, and she returns "back to 42" and with that somehow to Poilly with his 42 model. As it seems, the model depends partly at the both unknown decks, which everybody seems to have considered so uninteresting, that they nowhere appear. What can we do, that we get them?

kwaw

Huck said:
Poilly deck II (42 cards + 56, ? also around 1660 or 1730) ... (with Chaos as first card; with 58 pictures without number cards)

I do not know if it is relevant, or my memory even correct, that Etteilla extends his theories of the 'cabalistic letters of the alphabet' 1 - 7 up to include the number 98 (14x7) - I will try to track down what he wrote about it . . .

Huck

http://books.google.de/books?id=Udh..._esc=y#v=onepage&q=petit necromancien&f=false

This text, from the year 1802, "Annuaire de la Librairie" by Wilhelm Fleischer seems to say, that Petit Oracle des les Dames, 42 cards with 72 pictures, was available in 1802. 3 Francs.

So a little bit earlier than 1807.

The Petit Necomancier seems to be a book. A card deck with this name was dated 1810.

In the lower part appears another object with 42 cards (likely more orientated towards astrology).

************

From 1806:
http://books.google.de/books?id=oEw...CQ#v=onepage&q=Petit Oracle des Dames&f=false

Others from 1802 ...

This might be from 1799-1800

http://books.google.de/books?id=tDw...gU#v=onepage&q=Petit Oracle des Dames&f=false

......

Ha, and here the 1797 ..
http://books.google.de/books?hl=de&...oracle+dames#v=snippet&q=oracle dames&f=false

Journal typographique et bibliographique:
ou Annonce de tous les Ouvrages qui ont rapport à l'Imprimerie, comme Gravure, Fonderie, Papeterie, Géographie, Musique, Estampes, Architecture, Librairie ancienne et moderne, chefs-d'oeuvre de Reliure, et de tous les Arts libéraux et mécaniques
by Pierre Roux, Dujardin-Sailly

****************

Seems to be enough for a new dating of the deck. DDD wrote:

"An early example was the 'Petit Oracle de Dames' , a charming if eccentric pack of which the classic version was produced in Paris by the veuve Gueffier in 1807, but of which an earlier version by Mme Finet, with the same title but only 36 cards, had been issued in about 1800."

I didn't find Mme Finet in the given context, but a 42 cards deck called 'Petit Oracle des Dames' in 1797.

There's a Gueffier le Jeune in 1802. Earlier husband of the late veuve Gueffier in 1807 (?)

There's a "Batilliot jeune" in 1799-1800

There's an unknown author in 1797, who lives in rue du Coq-Héron, Maison de France and a trader Deroy, "libraire et commissionnaire en librairie, rue Hautefeuille, No 34", who "se charge de toutes sortes de commissions", so something like a publisher.

There's naturally no guarantee, that the earlier deck (1797) was totally identical to the version of 1807.

Huck

kwaw said:
I do not know if it is relevant, or my memory even correct, that Etteilla extends his theories of the 'cabalistic letters of the alphabet' 1 - 7 up to include the number 98 (14x7) - I will try to track down what he wrote about it . . .

This sounds very interesting.

kwaw

Huck said:
This sounds very interesting.

A dead-end I think, he is focused on 77/78 - the only reference I can find to 98 (in the first cahier, p.69) is:

Je releve les quatre nombres de ma geometrie plane, a la facon de Egyptiens, 7x10=70, & les quatre de mes solides 7x14 =98 + 70 = 168, & je remets mon alphabet.

I observes the four numbers of my plane geometry, in the manner of Egyptians, 7x10 = 70, and four of my solids 7x14 = 98 + 70 = 168, and I commend my alphabet.

Huck said:
This text, from the year 1802, "Annuaire de la Librairie" by Wilhelm Fleischer seems to say, that Petit Oracle des les Dames, 42 cards with 72 pictures, was available in 1802. 3 Francs.

So a little bit earlier than 1807.

...
Ha, and here the 1797 ..

There's naturally no guarantee, that the earlier deck (1797) was totally identical to the version of 1807.

Good hunting! The 1802 sounds a definite match - the 1797, as you say no garanti but I think a reasonable assumption they are one and the same from the title, including the phrase we find in the booklet ' Recreation du curieux' and the description, plus elsewhere it is identifiesd as by Gueffier.

Le Petit Oracle des dames, ou Récréation des curieux. Prix 3 fr. Paris, Gueffier, libraire boulevard Cérutti.

Journal typographique et bibliographique (1797) p.334

Huck

Batilliot is a bookseller, see ..
http://books.google.de/books?id=RH4...a=X&ei=oe8zT7KeCYGr0QXDzZyeAg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAQ

So that's not the producer.

But Deroy is a book-trader, and Gueffier jeune, too. And Depaulis (DDD) writes about Gueffier jeune (p. 113/114) and that he had all Etteilla books, it seems to have been Etteilla's major publisher. The "Veuve Gueffier" seems to be NOT the widow of Gueffier jeune or the name is a "publishing house" or there were two Gueffier jeune.
http://www.culture.fr/recherche/?ty...ueffier&portal_type=CLT_Site_Note#categorie_2

So there stays an unknown author.

kwaw

The British Museum has two Etteilla piquet packs published by Mme. Gueffier & Croisey:

Mme Gueffier (publisher/printer; French; Female; 1806; fl.)

Address

Rue Galande No. 61, Paris

Bibliography

Schreiber French 56

Biography

Playing-card maker; bookbinder

Also Known As

Gueffier

Croisey (printmaker; French; Male; 1788; fl.)

Address

Rue Neuve St Martin, la Première Porte-Cochère à droite par la Rue St Martin, Paris (1788) Rue de la Huchette, No. 19, Paris (1806)

Bibliography

Schreiber French 56

Biography

Engraver and mapmaker, active in Paris c. 1788. His trade card (Banks 133.55) notes that his wife engraved lettering and music. Presumably identical with the playing-card maker at rue de la Huchette in 1806.

Several sites name Alliette as the author, e.g. BnF, here it is listed only among the subjects of Alliette cartomancy (which include books by students of his school):

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id...epage&q=Etteilla OR Alliette Gueffier&f=false

But published by Peytieux. It is undated, but listed between books publish in 1782 and 1785.
Guiffier jeune is publishing Etteilla as early as the 1770's and Guiffier are still publishing him in the 19th century - As publishers of Etteilla it is fair to assume I think that Mme. Gueffier and Gueffier the Young (jeune) are related . . . In 1787 Gueffier Jeune, Bookseller, is based at Rue du Hurepoix, No.17.