Bourgeois Tarot

Tarot Nouveau oudlers circa 1910

The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a 19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is still used for playing card games today in western Europe and Canada. It is not used for divinatory purposes, for which tarot cards are most commonly known outside continental Europe. This deck is most commonly found in France, Belgian Wallonia, Swiss Romandy and Canadian Québec for playing French Tarot; in southwest Germany for playing Cego and Dreierles; and in Denmark for Danish Tarok.^[1][2] The pattern is produced in two different designs today: the Black Forest Cego pack used only in southwest Germany and the Tarot Nouveau used everywhere else that this pattern is employed, but especially in France. The pattern is also called the Domestic Scenes pattern, but the name Bourgeois Tarot is the one preferred by the International Playing Card Society.^[3]

Origin[]

An early German Tarock trump card, showing center indices

This pattern originated in the late 19th century with the C.L. Wüst cardmaker of Frankfurt, Germany.^[4][5][6][7] This earlier edition lacked the corner indices found on the later 20th century version published by French cardmakers such as Grimaud, but the values of trumps changed from Latin numerals common on older decks to Arabic numerals used in modern writing. These numerals were placed in the center of the panels in a Fraktur font similar to cards which were used for the German Tarock game of Cego. In the early 1900s, French cardmakers appropriated this pattern and would later add the corner indices now found on most modern card decks.^[8] The largest manufacturers of this pattern are Cartamundi (and its subsidiaries) and Piatnik & Söhne. Today there are at least two standard designs available. The most common is a 78-card pack produced by Ducale, Fournier, Grimaud and Piatnik for French Tarot; the trumps (tarots) depict scenes of well-to-do bourgeoisie at home and in the town and country, with numerals in each corner. The second design is a 54-card pack by F.X. Schmid; the trumps (tarocks) depict more rustic, rural scenes of peasant folk rather; the numerals are central above the individual scenes. The International Playing-Card Society classifies both types as Bourgeois Tarot.^[3]

Cards[]

The cards bear the French suits of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs, rather than the Italian suits of swords, cups, coins and batons (typical in tarot decks used for cartomancy) or the traditional German suits of hearts, bells, acorns and leaves (commonly seen on Tarock and Schafkopf decks in East Germany, Austria and Hungary). The "pip" and court cards of the Bourgeois Tarot are similar in format to those of the traditional 52-card deck, with the addition of the knight (chevalier) face card.

The atouts or trumps vary in design. Those of the 78-card, Fournier type depict genre scenes of whimsical early 19th-century social activities of the well-to-do European bourgeoisie, hence the name, Bourgeois Tarot. In this design, the cards have corner indices; on older packs only at the top left/bottom right, with the manufacturer's initials at the top right/bottom left. Modern packs have four corner indices.^[4]

By contrast, the tarocks of the 54-card, Black Forest Cego packs by F.X. Schmid used in southwest Germany for games such as Cego and Dreierles, have more rustic and rural scenes and the indices are placed at the top centre at both ends of the double-headed cards.^[4]

Both corner indices and the reversible art of the courts and trumps facilitate the identification of cards when fanned in a player's hand.

Tarot Nouveau[]

Composition[]

Tarot Nouveau court cards with English indices

The Fournier type of Tarot Nouveau deck, like most (but not all) tarot decks, is composed of 78 cards. 56 are suited in the traditional French suits, with 14 cards per suit; ten "pip" cards with values 1 to 10 (the ace bears the number 1 instead of the familiar "A", and usually ranks low), and four court cards: jack (valet), knight or cavalier (chevalier or cavalier), queen (dame) and king (roi). The other 22 are the 21 atouts or trumps and one fool.^[4] The deck is thus primarily different from the 52-card poker deck in the existence of the separate trump "suit", and the addition of the knight as a court card. With these cards removed the deck is identical to the 52-card deck for playing purposes. The face cards do not use the Parisian pattern (portrait officiel) but have their own unique illustrations. The fool, though similar in appearance and function to the joker card of poker decks, has differing origins (see Joker for more information).

Trumps[]

The 21 trumps in a Tarot Nouveau deck each have two scenes taking up the graphic portion of the card, in a roughly reversible fashion (one scene is always face-up), but unlike the court cards which have similar reversible art, most of the cards' scenes are not rotationally symmetrical. Each card has one scene show an "urban" representation of a particular trait or idea (listed below), while the other side depicts a more "rural" interpretation. These themes, instead of the historical and symbolic depictions, such as those used in the Tarot de Marseille, were chosen to represent tarot trumps in Unicode 7.0.^[9] The scenes depicted are as follows:^[10]