OK, I have been unable to scan the tiny picture upon a postcard- the size is aprox 10mm x 20- so you might imagine my problem.
I have found some facts though. The date is 1580 not 1530 as I had thought (or wrongly magnified from the postcard)
It appears in the very expensive portfolio by Jerome Brooks called Tobacco:It's History-Illustrated by the Books and Manuscripts in the Library Of George Arents. The price cited was $2500- I love Tarot History but not enough to fork that out.
There is another book called
The History of Smoking written in 1931 by the very grand moniker- Count Egon Ceasar Corti who gives the argument of why the printing press was the driving force behind the use of Tobacco in Europe and it's so called medicinal use- and the connection with playing card printing.
You can read Peter C Mancell's
Tales Tobacco Told in the 16th Century Europe
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... _n9460488/
Yet none of those plants attracted as much attention among European printers as tobacco. From its initial reception as an herb used in Native American rituals to its promotion as a cure for all sorts of diseases to its eventual condemnation as a weed that caused moral turpitude, tobacco elicited a startling range of deeply felt responses in early modern Europe.
One such magical remedy was that Tobacco cured syphilis- which brings me to the earliest Tarot de Marseille like deck called the Noblet
![Hmm... :-?](./images/smilies/39.gif)
What is that appendage in the left hand? Apparently there were pamphlets in France, railing against drunkards, with an images linking smoking to drinking and playing cards.(1600-1610)
I do not know why the Tobacco Merchant may have become the LLBatelevr in 1650 (or perhaps a little earlier) but it may explain the green thing in the sack on the Hadar reproduction- the knife that appears as common to Tarot de Marseille type cards. it certainly explains the emphasis on the plant in the ground. Basteleur = baastel" which means a conjurer's trick. Life is all smoke and mirrors maybe.Or maybe that Tarot was one of earliest spin doctors approach to product advertising. Maybe it is smoking God.(Hallucinating) Interesting though, I think.
~Lorredan