Dodal, linked reproduction
Valet de Coupes
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗A figure beside an unexpected companion
The held cup survives while posture, clothing and the accompanying creatures change.
Start with the pictures
Page of Cups
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 205
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Valet de Coupes
A standing figure carries a tall cup and holds a broad hat in the other hand. Long clothing falls toward the ground beside the legs.
Smith
Page of Cups
A standing figure looks at a fish rising from the cup in one hand. Waves stretch across the background.
Harris
Princess of Cups · Princess
A dancing figure is wrapped in pale flowing fabric above blue water. A swan-like form curves above the head, and a small rounded creature rises from the held cup.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite treats the fish as an image of the mind taking form. He links the page with study, reflection, service and messages, keeping the imagined appearance distinct from a literal prediction.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley describes a dancing figure whose flowing garment forms crystals at its edges, with a swan crest. His account treats crystallization as water giving an idea substance.
Which small detail turns a familiar cup into something surprising?
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.