Dodal, linked reproduction
Chevalier d'Espeis
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗Speed given a body
Compare the angle of rider, horse and weapon before assigning a character to the rider.
Start with the pictures
Knight of Swords
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 231
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Chevalier d'Espeis
A mounted figure carries a long sword diagonally above the horse. The rider’s clothing and the horse’s bent legs fill the narrow scene.
Smith
Knight of Swords
An armoured rider leans forward on a galloping horse, raising a sword into a sky of slanting clouds. Trees bend in the background.
Harris
Knight of Swords · Knight
An armoured rider leans forward along a pale horse’s body. Long diagonal streaks surround the figure, who carries a long blade and a shorter weapon.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite invokes the hero of chivalric romance, then gives both courage and destructive conflict among the meanings. The speed and weapon do not settle whether the capacity is used well.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley describes an armoured rider driving downward on a turbulent horse, carrying a sword and a shorter blade. His comparison is to the force of wind and storm.
Which angle makes the movement seem controlled or difficult to stop?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
Foolmade supplies the linked Dodal reproductions. Its surrounding commentary is not the basis for our historical claims. These images are linked externally; the Smith illustration reuses the public-domain source scan with its full page context.
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.