RWS in The Occult Review

Ukkonen

Excellent detective work, once again!

Thank you :)
 

roppo

Thank you Ukkonen. Now I'm researching about The Arts and Crafts Exhibition 1909-1910. If we can find a reference to the Rider deck and its backpattern, then those "which is early?" question might be settled, I believe.
 

Cerulean

Really stunning, I'm delighted to see this!

I had thought that the Arts and Crafts favoring of Walter Crane and the link of PCS being a member of the organization was wonderous--but there was an even closer link than anyone could have suspected!

Roppo, your glorious research and finds are generous and great to behold--thank you!

Off to muse at this incredible wonder...

Cerulean
 

lark

*I may mention that the artist, Miss Colman Smith, made a careful examination of numerous tarot packs from the 14th century onwards before undertaking her work.

The Occult Review 1909 December 300-301pp

I find this part very enlightening.
 

roppo

Now I'm thinking as follows :

An issue of The Occult Review consists of three different kinds of papers. They are --

1) the thick red paper for front and backcover,
2) the rough paper for letter-only pages,
3) the glossy smooth paper for pages containing photographs.

The article "Tarot : A Wheel of Fortune" by A.E. Waite was printed on the glossy smooth papers. And the lines of B&W drawings are really crisp and well defined, which is the obvious proof that they were photographically processed and printed from the original PCS drawings before coloring (the cloth of the Fool showing blank circles and no fruits). I believe it is safely assumed that the large 4 trumps are 1/1 size of the original. Waite himself said "I have selected four specimens taken direct from the drawings and naturally much larger than they will appear in the colour-printed set."(OR 1909 Dec. p.310).

Anyway it was natural for Rider Co. to make a set of photographical plates or films from PCS's original drawings at early stage. They could reduce the images down to the actural card size easily and faithfully and print copie and provide them to the Sprague & Co.. PCS might have used such set of copies for coloring. Furthermore, Rider Co. could reduce the image smaller and use them for adverts, which they did twice in 1910.

So many features of RWS shows the existence of photographic plates and processes. My temporal conclusion is that the 13 drawings of The Occult Review 1909 Dec. issue are the most faithful reproductions of original PCS pen and ink drawings because they are, as a matter of fact, photos. And what is called "oops"line of the Sun and its wrong XVIII number existed on the original drawing, presumably a PCS's mistake.
 

Teheuti

Thank you so much for sharing this detective work with us. I really appreciate it.

Mary
 

KariRoad

One of the strange features of RWS Trumps is the PCS monogram on the Magician. A third of the lower half was gone. My hypothesis about this is that PCS forgot to make a space for the title when she drew the Trump. When she discovered her mistake, she put a piece of paper on the part, drew the lines carefully but could not save her monogram entirely. Such emergency aid was possible because the drawing was meant to be processed photographically. As a supporting material for the hypothesis I would like to point out the difference of the widths of frame lines of outer rectangle and title space. And the line brake of S is another proof.
If I may humbly offer my theory: The PCS monogram on I. The Magician is meant to appear "organic" as if artistically growing up like the other flowers and plants. And perhaps, considering what we know of the practices of W.B. Yeats, there is no PCS monogram of The Fool because Pamela Colman Smith was depicting her spiritual Daemon. Simply hypothetical, but it conforms to my thoughts.