DECK STYLES

Although the Tarot de Marseille (TdM) tradition is well-established, variations in the TdM aesthetic have crept in. Various card makers in different regions established particular aesthetic patterns in their printing.

The differentiation of styles that we offer here is simplified for the purposes of choosing a deck. These categories of style are our own nomenclature; other Tarot scholars may classify them differently and perhaps with even more subtypes. We are approaching a stylistic analysis of the Marseilles Tarots only with the mission of helping a novice choose a deck, rather than to further an expert art historian of the TdM patterns.

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S¹ Style 1 refers to the seminal pattern most recognized as the early Marseille pattern. We volunteer the 1760 Conver style as a functional prototype for this style. Publishers Heron and Lo Scarabeo each offer a facsimile deck in this style, which have an Old World aesthetic, because they retain the yellowed-age of the museum originals.

The S¹ pattern was later popularized by Paul Marteau and his publishing company Grimaud in the classical tarots.
Finally, S1 patterns are the prototypes for the reconstruction decks of Camoin/Jodorowsky deck and Rodés/Sánchez. As you can see, this style is more widely distributed in the modern century than any other style and has thus become most associated with the TdM aesthetic.

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S² Style 2 refers to patterns outside of the Conver main pattern. If Conver was the “King” of TdM patterns, then these are the “Princes,” such as the Payen, the Dodal, or the Noblet (these terms refer to the card maker’s names).
Curiously, these aforementioned styles pre-date the Conver pattern, but didn’t take hold. We place here in S² any of the TdM designs that maintain an iconography similar to the Marseille deck, but do part from the precise style of the Conver.
M. Kris Hadar’s reconstructed TdM appears to be informed in part by the S² aesthetic.

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S³ Style 3 refers to decks that retain a Tarot de Marseille flavor, but may vary from the ruling Conver-protoype of ^S1 or the “Princes” of the S² decks. We realize that when including the S³ decks, we are casting a wide net here.

These decks also include the decks in the Swiss Tarot deck tradition, such as the Tarot de Besançon. These include decks wherein much of the deck looks like an S¹ or S² deck, however cards II-La Papesse and V-Le Pape are replaced by “Junon” and “Jupiter,” respectively.

As well, the Oswald Wirth deck and the Swiss 1JJ deck fall into this category. Although we acknowledge that these are not technically Marseilles Tarots, it is undeniable that particular modern reconstruction decks have been informed by such decks. For example, the Rodés/Sánchez Tarot de Marsella’s II-La Papesse shows a Sphinx underneath her robe, as per the Wirth deck.