Cicognara Tarot

Antonio Cicognara
1490-99
Watercolor and gilding on card, varnished.
Italy
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

These are the first and only extant tarot cards I’ve seen in real life to date. They were surprisingly thick, with what looked like several layers of paper to create the pasteboard base. The gilding was much more robust than I expected with deep tooling. My first impression was that these looked more like miniature panel paintings than delicate manuscript illuminations.

I was able to photograph my earlier prototype cards right along side the historical pieces, which was thrilling. But it also left me determined to go back to the drawing board and re-think my entire operation.