The Etteillas

Le Fanu

All useful information Cerulean. Don't edit!

This afternoon, I also dug out my Grimaud Petit Etteilla (which would come before all the other editions), his 32-card piquet pack with annotations, what he actually worked with before all the (what seem to be) 19th Century "Etteilla packs"...

Love the scans Coredil. I had seen them before in the relevant thread, but I think they belong here too.

I can feel another New Year's resolution coming on... I was looking at my Jeu de la Princesse this afternoon. Im getting back into these Etteilla packs again thanks to Huson's book.
 

gregory

Now, Wolfgang Kunze knows his stuff - maybe email him, Le Fanu ?
 

Cerulean

On Jeu de Princesse and Lo Scarabeo's Ancient Esoteric Tarot

Le Fanu said:
All useful information Cerulean. Don't edit!

This afternoon, I also dug out my Grimaud Petit Etteilla (which would come before all the other editions), his 32-card piquet pack with annotations, what he actually worked with before all the (what seem to be) 19th Century "Etteilla packs"...

Love the scans Coredil. I had seen them before in the relevant thread, but I think they belong here too.

I can feel another New Year's resolution coming on... I was looking at my Jeu de la Princesse this afternoon. Im getting back into these Etteilla packs again thanks to Huson's book.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Cerulean says:
I glanced at the Ancient Esoteric Tarot by Lo Scarabeo and remember the Egyptian dress and the odd bits that recall the Etteilla I and II such as the Serpent and Fishes and the two babes meeting under a sun and pyramid.

However you may find significant differences -the Star card now has a blue dress and when I compare it to my Lismon Etteilla Star--the butterfly and my fresh-faced Daughter of Eve pouring water are facing a different direction than the Lo Scarabeo Star!

Ancient Esoteric Tarot:
http://www.learntarot.com/eadesc.htm


Another note that might assist

Here's an Etteilla related snippet from the Historical forum I listed sometime--earlier this year: it was suggested if one wanted to use the Mary K. Greer timeline listed at Tarotpassages.com

Original timeline MKGreer author at Tarot Passages link:
http://www.tarotpassages.com/mkgtimeline.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


NOTE: plans to edit to insert deck variations/deck dates for Etteilla fans -
Original timeline info:

1791 Etteilla dies. Publication of Dictionnaire Synonimique du Livre de Thot (Thesaurus of the Book of Thoth) by Anonymous, but possibly a pupil of Etteilla’s, retired army officer le Chevalier Pierre-Joseph Joubert de la Salette. (Decker, et al, and Huson, The True Tarot, recently republished as The Mystical Origins of the Tarot].

late 18th c? French copperplate deck with 21 extant cards, called by Kaplan, the Grandprêtre Tarot. It appears to be the first deck using the titles High Priest and High Priestess: Le grandprêtre and La grandprêtresse. La prudence replaces the Hanged Man and shows him upright. Card XV is untitled but depicts the Fool instead of the Devil (or could be a combination). [Kaplan, ii, p.194].

Cerulean's suggested INSERTION: FROM DECKER and DUMMETT

...major writers of cartomancy insisted the proper cards to use for this were Tarots....three varieties:

German Tarots

Italian Tarots (not produced in Italy but a traditional form used in France and elsewhere) such as the Tarot de Marseille, Tarot de Besancon and Belgian with Italian suit signs

The third was Egyptian Tarots by which was meant Etteilla's cards and others in that tradition. Until 1889, when French writers on cartomancy deigned to notice the first two varieties of Tarots, they invariably insisted that only the "Egyptian" ones are suitable for foretelling the future

End Insertion

c. 1800 Le Grand Etteilla ou L’Art de Tirer les Cartes by Julia Orsini (Paris).

1804-1807 Melchior Montmignon D’Odoucet issues the three volume Science des Signes, ou médecine de l’esprit, connue sous le nom de tirer les cartes, (The Science of Signs, or medicine for the mind, known under the name of card drawing), based on the work of Etteilla. This lays the ground work for Minor Arcana interpretations today. [Huson, The True Tarot, recently republished as The Mystical Origins of the Tarot]

1810 Eliphas Levi born: revolutionary, ex-priest, magician, scholar. Dies 1875.

1811 Paul Christian born. Real name: Jean-Baptiste Pitois. Dies 1877.

1814 Les Souvenirs Prophétiques d’Une Sibylle, Sur les Causes Sécrètes de son Arrestation, Le 11 Décembre 1809 by Mlle. M.A. Le Normand (Paris).

1826 Parisian publisher Pierre Mongie republishes Etteilla’s original deck but with Freemasonic sounding titles on the cards. (now Grimaud’s Grand Etteilla Tarot).

Cerulean's suggested INSERTION FROM DECKER and DUMMETT:

This version was printed from the original copper plates, which had been altered to erase the corner symbols (but not the numbers of the cards) and add to most of the trumps, court cards and Aces new legends in cursive script, inside the frames of the pictorial designs, thus conferring on them names with a Biblical or Masonic flavor, such as "Hiram's Masonry" (card 2), "Solomon" (card 9), "Rehoboam (card 21) and 'the Cup of Balthasar" card 49, the Ace of Cups)...The label goes on to advertise a book...The book...Almost the whole section of the book devoted to the Egyptian Tarots is reprinted in an unattributed pamphlet entitled Grand Etteilla issued by Grimaud with the version of Grand Etteilla I they have been producing for many years...

End Insertion


1838 Grand livre de Thot deck published by Simon Blocquel -- a variation on the Etteilla deck with a book by Julia Orsini called Le Grand Etteilla ou L’Art de Tirer les Cartes. (see 1800).

NOTE: Lismon Etteilla stamped 18-- (Cerulean's Nov 2009 correction - should be 1890) comes with book by Julia Orsini later...

1843 Jeu de la Princesse Tarot first published as book illustrations. Reprinted as Cartomanzia Italiana by Edizioni del Solleone in 1983. (There is a much better reprint of Jeu de la Princesse by Éditions Dusserre, Paris, circa 1998-2001. Reprinted after the first edition issued by Charles Wattiliaux in 1860. Lo Scarabeo has a reprint too.--K. Frank Jensen)

The full thread with listing of 78 cards and 'Etteilla astrology assignments'

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=122602&highlight=lismon+etteilla
 

Le Fanu

Wow! Incredibly useful stuff there. Im particularly intrigued by the discrepancies the the Scarabeo edition and the Lismon edition. I have a Fabbri/Orbis edition called the Book of Thot and dated as a reproduction from 1870. I must compare the Star card with the Lo Scarabeo Ancient Esoteric tarot!

That timeline gets things clear in my mind now!
 

AnemoneRosie

In answer to "does anyone actually read with this?" trying to do so is my current obsession. Obviously this is also an exercise in frustration.
 

Philippe

In answer to "does anyone actually read with this?" trying to do so is my current obsession. Obviously this is also an exercise in frustration.

I see you are canadian. Are you fluent in french ?
 

AnemoneRosie

Yes. I am. Why?
 

DavidMcCann

I've just got the OP Laura Tuan Tarocchi egiziani, and it turned out to be an Etteilla! Completely redrawn with new pictures in Egyptian style, but the trumps have the Etteilla order and meanings: Chaos, Light, Plants, Sky, World, Stars, Birds & Fish, Repose, Justice, Temperance, etc. Very beautiful but the cards and book were only ever available in Italian.