W-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l, I guess I'm gonna jump in here and throw my 2¢ into the kitty, because I think you‘re both right! Certainly the person planning the color arrangement had to be cognizant of the limitations of stencil making and the need for stencil durability. It is also apparent that an effort wa...

Hi Robert, Purple was certainly used in early decks, both the Paris and the Catelin Geoffroy have purple areas. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find a Tarot de Marseille that used it as well. I'd sure like to see the magic deck though, especially if it can be traced back to 1400!!! You‘re right,...

Hi Enrique, I agree, an incredibly unconvincing story. Where is this antique deck? Has it been authenticated/dated in any way? Have the pigments used been studied? Has it been over-painted? Etc., etc, etc. Having said this, it would have been possible to achieve a purple color without adding another...

Great images, Steve! I like your idea of the artist as possibly a collector of antiquities; that would explain the rich detail of his images right down to the little lion-supported cartouches. I'll bet he was an interesting guy , clever, unconventionally inventive, a bit eccentric, maybe a sort of r...

Hi Mary, Thanks for your response, I always like hearing what you have to say, but I dunno—I think that arranged marriages for social stability were more a part of high society than the common folk. I guess I am less heavily into the rarified strata of the Renaissance than perhaps I could be. Guess ...

Hi Mary, I have the same problem and lost a long carefully written message yesterday. Here are two things you can do: 1. Select the entire message before submitting the post and copy it, then open a document on your desktop and save the message to that document. Lines won't break to fit on the page,...

Hi Robert, LaPapesse: I, too, have always liked this Papessa very much. Her crown is wonderful, and surprising to me, for I tend to expect a double-crown on La Papessa. I very much like her hair and find it quite interesting that her hair is uncovered. She wears no veil! The book is a really strong ...

Hi Robert, I, too, have always liked this Papessa very much. Her crown is wonderful, and surprising to me, for I tend to expect a double-crown on La Papessa. I very much like her hair and find it quite interesting that her hair is uncovered. She wears no veil! The book is a really strong point of in...

Thank you, Ross, for posting links to so many beautiful works of art.

And thank you, OnePotato. That really was a charming piece—a great find!

Hi Enrique, Lets say you are that young man standing between two women in Lamoreux. You don’t know which one to choose, so you ask Cupid for advice and Cupid whispers in your ear: “do the beautiful thing”. Who would you choose? Virtue or Vice? I considered avoiding answering this question because my...