1701 Dodal Tarot de Marseille (Dusserre): General Observations thread

Rusty Neon

• #1

Hi everyone!

This thread is meant for brief observations, comments and questions about this important tarot deck.

More elaborate and complex discussions about the deck's imagery are perhaps best left for separate threads.

 

Rusty Neon

• #2

Museum stamps

Typically the museum stamp of the Bibliothèque nationale is on bottom of the card. The curators definitely were asleep at the wheel when they stamped the 4 of Swords card.

 

Rusty Neon

• #3

XIII

The bottom third of trump XIII looks like the original card was water-damaged?

 

Rusty Neon

• #4

Credits

I've never seen so many appearances of name credits in a single tarot deck.

2 of Cups and 2 of Coins: Iean Dodal

As well, at the top of the 2 of Cups, there are the letters P L N and underneath letters that I can't make out completely: F P E (perhaps other letters too). Anyone make sense of it?

F. P. Le Trenge (the engraver? the printer?) has their name on a whole bunch of cards. Very unusual, eh? On:

Force
Le Monde
Knight of Cups
Knight of Swords
Knight of Coins
Knight of Batons
Valet of Batons

oh my.

 

Rusty Neon

• #5

IIII The Emperor and the Arabic numeral 4

I'm intrigued by the Arabic numeral "4" at the top of this card.

Does the 4 allude to the leg posture of the emperor which, in some ways, is reminiscent of the shape of the number 4?

 

Rusty Neon

• #6

Queen of Swords

The card title
REINE DESPEIE S
fascinates me in two regards:

(1) Was "Espeies" ever a correct way of spelling the word?

(2) The "S" at the very end of the title sort of looks like it's a handwritten "S" rather than part of the woodcut design like the other letters in the title. Perhaps this "S"added by the the user of the deck.

 

Major Tom

• #7

La Lvne has the letters I P under the back legs of the creature on the right. I could almost understand if the letters were I D but there is no mistaking the P.

 

Cerulean

• #8

BN stamp on the card---thanks!

I was wondering about this, as two decks that I favor are stored at the BN and I noticed at the middle of the bottom area of the card, it looked like a small BN is stamped on both decks. (The so-called Charles VI and the Vievielle.)

The BN stamps are an identifying marker to me, but I didn't know when they appeared on the decks that I mentioned above.

Cerulean Mari

 

Rusty Neon

• #9

numbering on Cups pips

It's interesting that the Dodal's 2 of Cups, 4 of Cups and 7 of Cups don't have any numbering -- unlike their 1760 Conver counterparts.

 

Fulgour

• #10

F. P. LE TRANGE may be the ptinter's code for "Export"

I will try to find the site where I was able to read this