Huck wrote: 01 Mar 2018, 21:35
Does this mean, that Pierre Francois Basan had been the artist of the Etteilla cards?
Well, as engraver and printer of these 8 plates it seems - not necessarily as original 'artist' (whose designs as engraver he would copy) -- As a print-seller himself, Alliette knew Bassan as organiser of the Mariette Auction - he mentions him in relation to such, as reported by Decker, Dummet & Depaulis in 'Wicked Pack of Cards", p80
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The print as listed in QUÉRARD :
https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=UK ... 22&f=false
1789 would match the ATF timeline of his first deck being printed, but the engravings and these prints may have already been readed in 1788?
From the Etteilla timeline @ ATF:
1789
Etteilla applies for a “general” patent to print his deck on 19 Jan. 1789, granted 5 Feb. 1789, registered on 13 March (DDD p. 92). A 4 page pamphlet entitled “Livre de Thoth” dated 1789 says, “See the Book of Thoth, which I am permitted to publish today, with the King’s appointment.” Also establishing Etteilla’s involvement with this deck are copies, made by their author, of letters written in Lyon by De Bonrecuille, one of the “interprètes.” On 27 November he writes to Etteilla: ‘I am very glad to hear that we will soon have the Tarot cards you have restored.’ Then on 14 March 1789: “We very satisfactorily have received the Tarot cards which you sent us...” (DDD p. 91)
I presume the November letter must be 1788, prior to the reciept of the cards in March 1789 -- perhaps the Basan prints would be used as part of his application for a general patent to print his cards made in January?
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 28 Feb 2018, 23:14
It would be good for someone to print a coloured deck based on these -
It would indeed! With or without the adverts?
The advert on card 28 is mentioned by Levi in his Dogma and Ritual of High Magic, as translated by Waite:
In the Tarot, now become very scarce, which he engraved, we find the following naive advertisement on the twenty-eighth card the eight of clubs :
" Etteilla, professor of algebra and correctors (sic) of the modern blunders of the ancient book of Thot, lives in the Rue de l'Oseille, No. 48, Paris."
Etteilla would have certainly done better not to have corrected the blunders of which he speaks ; his books have degraded the ancient work discovered by Court de Gebelin into the domain of vulgar magic and fortune-telling by cards.