Title : Le Cabinet des estampes de la Bibliothèque nationale : guide du lecteur et du visiteur, catalogue général et raisonné des collections qui y sont conservées / par Henri Bouchot,... ; table générale par Louis Morand et Mme Hervian (1895)
Author : Bouchot, Henri (1849-1906)

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5 ... jeu+cartes








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A relevant passage contains the Noblet, the Vievil and Tarot de Paris deck. Another mentioned deck is the Alla Torre deck, which is occasionally discussed by Ross. In context of the Tarot de Paris is noted ...



... a copy of something, which stays undefined. Has anybody any idea, what deck this might be?

Further I found a Tarot by Jean Hemau in Epinal.

At ...
http://www.tarot-as-tarocchi.com/la_fab ... secol.html
... I found ...

Gia a meta del XVII secolo, si trovavano dei mazzi decorati sul dorso, in particolar modo quelli pubblicati da Jean Hemau, ad Epinal, ma il fatto è rarissimo.

... a Jean Hemau, mid of 17th century, who made strange and rare playing cards.

an auction page:
http://www.sothebys.com/fr/catalogues/e ... 5.html/48/





Information desired about this person, and naturally also about the cards. If there were really Tarot cards from Epinal in mid 17th century, then we would have a contemporary deck to Vievil etc.

I found about the location Epinal, that first an engraver Pierre Houion worked there (begin of 17th century). Then came Jean Himau, who had a graveur Claude Gerard. Already Pierre Houion made playing cards:



I found a Tarot Epinal, which is said to have been a copy of a deck made 1830. But what if Epinal had 1830 an older version, which was copied. The Tarot Epinal falls in the class similar-to-Besancon-Tarot, with Jupiter and Juno.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/epinal/
http://www.adnil.com/CARDS/epinal.html

Possibly the most Northern deck of the Besancon Tarot style?

There is still an open question





The name Jean Hemau appears at playing-cards at a picture sold by Sotheby's
The description says ...



... and there's confirmation, that Jean Hemau had been a playing card producer in early 17th century.

The playing card section of a catalog of the Bibliotheque Nationale France says, that they have the Vievil, the Noblet and the Tarot de Paris. It also knows the name Jean Hemau and they have a Tarot of him.



WHERE IS THIS? The Vievil, as I saw, had been also found rather lately. The Michelino deck texts were found very late.

Where is this 17th century Tarot of Jean Hemau? What could one do to find it?

Getting angry about it ... I found this ...



http://books.google.de/books?id=7F5LAAAAYAAJ
... at p. 136
The History of Playing Cards: With Anecdotes of Their Use in Conjuring ... (1865)
edited by Edward Samuel Taylor

This is inside a chapter, which promises to write about Tarot and Trappola and inside a list with a lot of things, which partly are NOT all TAROT. But the Noblet for instance is also on the list.



************

Acorns, fruits, flowers, shield of arms ... I wonder, if we have to imagine curious things like

http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks05/d02251/d02251.htm
http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks05/d02253/d02253.htm
http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks02/d00618/d00618.htm
http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks05/d02260/d02260.htm

Huck wrote:
I found a Tarot Epinal, which is said to have been a copy of a deck made 1830. But what if Epinal had 1830 an older version, which was copied. The Tarot Epinal falls in the class similar-to-Besancon-Tarot, with Jupiter and Juno.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/epinal/
http://www.adnil.com/CARDS/epinal.html

Possibly the most Northern deck of the Besancon Tarot style?

Here you have the complete deck
http://www.albideuter.de/html/epinal.html

There is some information but in german language.

sembei wrote:
Here you have the complete deck
http://www.albideuter.de/html/epinal.html

There is some information but in german language.

Yes, thanks, I know, but the real question is about a Jean Hemau deck in 17th century. This is from an 1830 deck.

Huck, could you not contact the Bibliotheque Nationale? Surely everything in their collection must have been photographed, even if it's not online.

Pen wrote:Huck, could you not contact the Bibliotheque Nationale? Surely everything in their collection must have been photographed, even if it's not online.

... :-) ... Actually I have the hope, that our French friends could organize this better than me.

This page has one Hémau selection -
http://images.bnf.fr/jsp/index.jsp
(type "hémau")



Seems to be the same set of suits, except "fruits" should be "bells".

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:This page has one Hémau selection -
http://images.bnf.fr/jsp/index.jsp
(type "hémau")

Seems to be the same set of suits, except "fruits" should be "bells".

Nice ... that's something real.
Indeed I found another sentence about the Hemau deck, where it was called "Suisse cards" and the interpretation was not Flowers, but Roses, and not Fruits, but Bells. So Taylor was puzzling.

That's an interesting search at http://images.bnf.fr/jsp/index.jsp ... but I've some doubts, if it gets all.

I made just this finding:


with description:

Note cliché NQ-D-005956
légende Jeu de Tarot : Roi de denier; XX le Jugement; Roi de coupe
département Estampes et photographie
cote du document RESERVE KH-34 (1)-PET FOL
exposition 2009 - Jeux de princes jeux de vilains
période du document XVIIème siècle
date du document ou du recueil 16..-165.
partie de Tarot "parisien anonyme"
folio, pagination Planches 3 et 5
auteur(s) Non identifié (Auteur)
catégorie Estampes

Well, if the description is right, it would be Pre-Vievil, or at least at a similar time. Wonderful ... but seems to be just an error, it looks like a picture of 3 Noblet cards, which weren't identified here correctly, but elsewhere.

I took a longer walk through the items, which reacted on "jeu" (about 800). I saw a lot of things, which are called "Tarot", but I would think of some, that they are not tarot according our common criteria and are just called "so".
For the moment I would assume, that the "Tarot of Jean Hemau" just might be a 19th century error.