Valet of Batons - Contrasting the Dodal and Conver

Let's take a look at the Valet of Batons.

(As usual, the images are also presented adjacent each other on the ATS site.)

The Jean Dodal and Nicholas Conver are pretty much in agreement on this card, and there are very few differences when comparing other decks.


Both images have information, I believe, about their intended destinations on the side of the card. Dodal is for export, Conver is from (or for) France.

The Dodal is untitled. For a deck that tends to use titles fairly freely, I wonder why this is? Perhaps it is because adding the title would have chopped off the feet in the Dodal image? The conver seems to have solved this by raising the right foot so that it is level with the left.

Both Valets seem to be holding a baton with their hands resting on the top. The Dodal is a little less clear.. and might suggest that the baton extended higher above the hand as it does on some other early decks which I shall present shortly.

Both seem to have a Valet with a drape hanging on the right side of his clothing, and perhaps also on the left.

Are there any other aspects to this card that distinguish the decks?

On the Dodal, he is standing on bare, almost barren ground.

On the Conver there are a couple of small plants.

The arms, on the Dodal, seem very confused. It is very hard to tell which is which.

Lillie said:

On the Dodal, he is standing on bare, almost barren ground.

On the Conver there are a couple of small plants.

The arms, on the Dodal, seem very confused. It is very hard to tell which is which.

Click to expand...

I agree Lillie. On the Dodal, the way the lines are drawn at the elbow it is very hard to tell which arm is which!

I'm adding more cards now so that we might get a bit more insight.

best,
robert

Adding the Jacques Vieville and the Tarot of Paris:

The J.B. Benois Tarot of Besancon and the Jacque(s) Rochias/Jean Proche Tarot:

The Giuseppe Drago



Of note: The Drago is missing a title, like the Dodal deck.

After I posted my last comment, about the 'barren ground' in the Dodal, I had another look at it. And that horizontal line at the back, and the diagonal hatching made me think that maybe it was not ground, but a floor. So, indoors, perhaps.

The new ones you have put up...

Apart from the Veiville and Paris, the others are all so similar.

It's when I see this that I begin to understand what I have read, where people say there is a 'true' tarot, or an 'original' Marseilles pattern.

They must all be copied from each other, or from some lost original. They could not be so similar otherwise.
That V at the back of the neck, the position of the arms (however confused!) are identical.
The Vievill seems to follow the pattern to a lesser degree, but it is still there.

It is the Tarot of Paris that seems to be the radical departure.
The body is turned so you see the front, the clothes are very different, he has a sword.
And is that a beard?
Seems a bit old for a 'valet' or 'page'.
But of course, he is not called that. He is a 'Varlet'. and unless I am mistaken, varlet is a very old word for a criminal. Or a knave (linking it to ordinary playing cards!)

The big club is in all of them. All the 4 people in the court seem to have a different style of baton.
Could different meanings be ascribed to the different shapes?

Sorry if all that is rather a lot.
The cards got me thinking...

Adding the Giacomo Zoni and the Sforza Visconti:

Lillie said:

It's when I see this that I begin to understand what I have read, where people say there is a 'true' tarot, or an 'original' Marseilles pattern.

They must all be copied from each other, or from some lost original. They could not be so similar otherwise.

Click to expand...

Personally, I hope that these threads will help us all to understand the early tarot traditions with a bit more of a holistic perspective!

I find it difficult when a certain deck is pointed to and stated that it is "true".. for me, it is by looking at the variations that I begin to form a sense of what might have been the earliest representations of the cards. Of course.. these are just guesses.

Each deck that we have left to us, I think, is "flawed", and wonderful at the same time. They hold little gems of information. The Dodal is full of so much line confusion, and the Conver seems to have "cleaned up" some of the iconography, but changed early iconography in the process. However, when we compare them to each other and to other early decks... we begin to see distinct patterns that crossed over borders of time and space... and we can, perhaps, glimpse the early tarot as it might have been.

best,
robert

Now that is interesting!

The first one has everything but the shoulder drapery.

The second...
So different, but so similar.
The only one where it isn't a great big club, entirely different clothes, and bare headed.
But, that V at the back of the neck is there, the position of the body is there too, sort of turned away and from the back.

A very feminine face. But not in those clothes, I suppose.
The baton.
The first thing that sprung to my mind was a spindle, with the big turny weight at the bottom. But that makes no sense.
Does anyone know what it is?
It looks like it ought to be something!

Sorry.. I must have been posting at the same time as you.

I am sure you are right, about none of them being the 'true' tarot.
It's just that until I saw these comaprison threads I had never really considered the question. And now, the first thing that strikes me about them is generally how similar they are.
And for these images to have persisted so long, and with so little apparent change (to my untrained eyes) is just amazing. I never realised before.