The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of

tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...

cards of German origin that is still used for playing

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

s today in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for

divinatory Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history ...

purposes.''Bourgeois Tarot by Piatnik 1987''
at wopc.co.uk. Retrieved 11 Septemberg 2022. This deck is most commonly found in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, Belgian

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—al ...

, Swiss

Romandy Romandy (french: Romandie or )Before World War I, the term French Switzerland (french: Suisse française) waalso used german: Romandie or , it, Romandia, rm, Romanda) is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 milli ...

and Canadian

Québec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

for playing French Tarot; in southwest Germany for playing

Cego Cego is a Tarot game for three or four players played with eponymous German Tarot playing cards. The game was probably derived from the three-player Badenese tarot game of Dreierles after soldiers returned from the Iberian Peninsula during the N ...

and Dreierles; and in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

for

Danish Tarok Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

. The pattern is produced in two different designs today: the Black Forest pack used only in southwest Germany and the Tarot Nouveau used everywhere else, but especially in France. The

International Playing-Card Society The International Playing-Card Society (IPCS) is a non-profit organisation for those interested in playing cards, their design, and their history. While many of its members are collectors of playing cards, they also include historians of playing car ...

(IPCS) classifies both types as Bourgeois Tarot.''Pattern Sheet 18''
at i-p-c-s.org. Retrieved 5 September 2020. The pattern is also called the Domestic Scenes pattern, but the name Bourgeois Tarot is preferred by the IPCS. Simon Wintle also refers to the original design by

C.L. Wüst C.L. Wüst was a German playing card manufacturer that was founded by Conrad Ludwig Wüst in 1819 and was active until 1927. History Conrad Wüst was born around 1783. In 1811, he was granted a licence to start up a cardmaking business in the Ge ...

as the Encyclopedic Tarot.

Origin

The Bourgeois Tarot pattern originated around 1865 with

, cardmakers in Frankfurt, Germany.International Playing Card Society - The Bourgeois Tarot
/ref>Wintle, Simon
Wüst "Encyclopedic Tarot"
at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 29 October 2016. The early edition, sometimes called the Encyclopaedic Tarot, lacked the corner indices on suit cards 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 Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such a ...

used in modern writing. These numerals were placed in the centre of the panels in a

Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiq ...

font similar to cards which are now used for the German Tarock game of

. In the early 1900s, French cardmakers appropriated this pattern and would later add the corner indices to suit cards now found on other modern card decks. The numerals of the tarots were also repositioned to the four corners, while a maker's initial is often found in the centre of the panel. On some editions, however, the maker's initial occupies two of the corners. Meanwhile German cardmakers continued to follow the original design: no corner indices on the suit cards and centrally placed numerals on the tarocks (tarots).

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

decks used for

cartomancy Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century. Huson, Paul (2004). ''Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancien ...

) or the traditional German suits of hearts, bells, acorns and leaves (commonly seen on Tarock and

Schafkopf Schafkopf (), also called Bavarian Schafkopf, is a popular German trick-taking card game of the Ace-Ten family for four players that evolved, towards the end of the 19th century, from German Schafkopf. It is still very popular in Bavaria, where ...

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 A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

() face card. The or

trumps A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. Typically, an entire suit is nominated as a ''trump suit''; these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the terms ''trum ...

vary in design. Those of the 78-card, Fournier type depict

genre scenes Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...

of whimsical early 19th-century social activities of the well-to-do European ''

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. Th ...

'', 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. By contrast, the tarocks of the 54-card, Black Forest Cego packs by

F.X. Schmid For over a century until 1996, F.X. Schmid was an important German manufacturer of playing cards (traditional card games and quartets), board games and puzzles. It was considered one of the major European manufacturers. In 1995, its turnover was 67 ...

used in southwest Germany for games such as

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. 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

The largest manufacturers of the Tarot Nouveau pattern are

Cartamundi Cartamundi Group is a company based in Turnhout, Belgium, that manufactures, produces, and sells board games, card games, collectible card games, packages, and playing cards through its manufacturing and sales subsidiaries. The name of the company ...

and its subsidiaries, Ducale, Fournier and Grimaud; and

Piatnik Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, commonly referred to as Piatnik, is an Austrian playing card and board game manufacturing company based in Vienna. History The company was founded in 1824 by the card manufacturer Anton Moser (17 ...

of Austria. They still produce the 78-card pack used for French Tarot and

; the trumps (tarots) depict typical nineteenth century French scenes of well-to-do bourgeoisie at home and in the town and country, with numerals in each corner.

Composition

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 (), knight or cavalier ( or ''cavalier''), queen () and king (). The other 22 are the 21 or

and one fool. The deck is thus primarily different from the

standard 52-card deck The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used ...

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 () 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 The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan befo ...

, were chosen to represent tarot trumps in Unicode 7.0. The scenes depicted are tabulated below together with an interpretation of the seasons and themes represented by the French Tarot club of Orphin:
at Tarot Club d'Orphin (78). Retrieved 29 October 2016.

Black Forest Cego

The second type of pack in current use is one produced by

, which dates to the 19th century and follows more closely the Encyclopedic Tarot design of

. It may have originally comprised 78 cards and been used for games such as

Grosstarock Grosstarock (german: Großtarock) is an old three-handed card game of the Tarock family played with a full 78-card Tarot pack. It was probably introduced into the southern German states around 1720 but spread rapidly into Austria and northwards a ...

, but it is only produced today in a shortened form used for the game of

. Cego is the national game of

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...

and is played with two different patterns of pack: this one and an animal tarot pack known as

Adler Cego Animal Tarot (German: ''Tiertarock'') is a genre of tarot decks used for playing card games that were most commonly found in northern Europe, from Belgium to Russia, only one of which has survived: the Adler Cego pattern in south Germany. A theme ...

. This variant of the Bourgeois Tarot depicts on its trump cards scenes of rural and town life based on woodcuts by

Ludwig Richter Adrian Ludwig Richter (September 28, 1803June 19, 1884) was a German painter and etcher, who was strongly influenced by Erhard and Chodowiecki. He was a representative of both Romanticism and Biedermeier styles. He was the most popular, and ...

.''Alte Spielkarten, Cego Kartenspiel von F.X. Schmid''.
at picclick.de. Retrieved 10 September 2022. The same pack was produced by

Bielefelder Spielkarten Bielefelder Spielkarten was a mid-20th century, German manufacturer of playing cards based in Bielefeld, Germany. History The firm was founded in Bielefeld 1950 as a subsidiary of E. Gundlach, its first games bearing the parent company's name ...

from 1955 to 1974 and the pattern was also manufactured by A.S.S.Dummett & McLeod (1975), pp. 30–46. In the 1970s, this was the most common pattern used for playing Cego, but ASS have ceased mainstream production and their pack is only now (2022) obtainable from a couple of outlets.

Composition

The pack is only known today in the 54-card version needed for the game of Cego. There are 32 French-suited cards with 8 cards per suit. There are four court cards as in the French Bourgeois Tarot pack, but only four pip cards per suit. In the black suits these are the 10, 9, 8 and 7, ranking in their normal order (10 high); in the red suits they are the Ace, 2, 3 and 4, rnaking in reverse order (Ace high). None of the cards bear index numbers. The Fool depicts a minstrel and the 22 trump cards (known as ''Trucks'' or ''Drucks'') bear everyday rural and domestic scenes.

Notes

References

Literature

* Dummett, Sir Michael and John McLeod (1975). "Cego" in ''The Journal of the Playing-Card Society'', Vol. 4, No. 1, Aug 1975, pp. 30-46. ISSN 0305-2133.

External links

*
''IPCS Pattern Sheet 18 - Bourgeois Tarot''.

''Wüst "Encyclopedic Tarot"''

''Héron French tarot''

''Bourgeois Tarot by Piatnik 1987''

''Bourgeois Tarot''
by VASS.

by Wüst. {{Tarot and Tarock card games Tarot playing card decks French tarot Playing card patterns