Yves Renaud’s decks are always excellent value, high quality productions. This slightly larger, close facsimile originally created by Francois Heri in 1718, nearly but not exactly conforms to the basic pattern familiar from the Madenie, Chosson and Conver decks, et al. The carving is masterful, but perhaps not as refined as Madenie’s. Uniquely, the card’s subjects in this deck are fully revealed, on each side, without getting cut off by the frame. The stenciling is fairly rough, particularly the red areas. In many places it appears the stencil was slightly misaligned; or the ink was daubed on by hand in lieu of any stenciling at all. The odd-numbered sword cards are especially terrifying for this reason, as the blades are half-inked in opaque red, and highly suggestive of blood. Furthermore, 2 court cards display an entirely different shade of red, which suggests the possibliity that this deck was cobbled together from 2 or more disparate printings of Heri’s blocks. The Ace of Deniers (and the Ace de Bastons, less so) is a hot mess of smears, but L’ermite is truly beautiful, with a brown Franciscan-style habit; Arcana 13 is also refreshingly novel, a tan figure astride a field of well-articulated yellow, without the typical black ground. It’s impossible to view this deck without thinking about the early 18th century labor practices; this deck, so unlike our digital decks, was entirely hand-made, each iteration unique, likely stenciled or painted in part by children in studios lit by lantern or candle. It might be a challenge for some of us modern folk, so tainted by machine precision, to embrace this deck’s imperfections. But it also shows a return to a hand-made world, steps closer to Tarot’s origins, and closer to its craftspeople and artisans who carried Tarot forward.

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