The Adam C. de Hautot Tarot is another beautiful and historically important deck from the workshop of Sullivan Hismans. This deck is the earliest representative of the Rouen-Brussels pattern, an alternate Tarot de Marseille (TdM) that flourished from about 1650 to 1780 in a corner of Europe defined by Paris, Rouen and Brussels. The Popess and Pope are replaced by a strutting Spanish Captain from the Commedia dell’ Arte, and with Bacchus straddling a wine barrel. Most of the trump cards from the Devil on up deviate from the TdM pattern, many of them resembling hand painted decks from 15th century Italy.
Here’s a selection of those alternate trump images which appear in all decks of this type. The Tower is called the Thunderbolt and shows a shepherd taking shelter under a tree. The Devil is my all-time favorite of any historic Tarot. The upright Hanged Man looks like a clog dancer. I see Temperance as a housewife with a feather duster pouring herself a little mommy juice in the afternoon. There’s something playful and irreverent about this deck.
Hismans drew on three incomplete decks housed in museums in France and Germany to compile the deck without needing to recreate any cards. The luminous colors were hand stenciled onto the original cards just as in traditional workshops. Here are two of my favorite cards. I love the fluffy angel wings on Justice, and her red frisbee for a halo. Notice the skeleton on the Judgment card. No need for a complete body to participate in the Last Judgment.
The four suits are in the TdM style with some nice flourishes. I love the strength and energy of the Batons. The sweet little bird on the Two of Swords reappears in Hismans’ envelope design (below). The poor Valet de Batons seems overwhelmed by the huge log he’s carrying, while the King of Coins is styling in his ruffly shorts.
Where did this type of deck come from? The most plausible theory says that two styles of Tarot deck migrated from Italy to France about 1500. One style became the Tarot de Marseille and pushed out all competitors. The other style persisted quietly underground, leaving no examples, until re-emerging in Rouen-Brussels decks. What if the situation were reversed and the Tarot de Marseille and fallen into obscurity while the Rouen-Brussels style became the standard Tarot deck? Cartomancy with Tarot would look very different today.
About 1650, Jacques Vievil of Paris published the first deck of this type, with the variant trump cards but not the Captain and Bacchus. The pinnacle of the Rouen-Brussels type is the Vandenborre and similar decks published in Brussels in the mid 18th century. The de Hautot is sometimes considered a bridge between Paris and Brussels. But a linear progression through time doesn’t necessarily mean that earlier decks were the ancestor of later ones. All decks of the Rouen-Brussels pattern may have drawn on one common ancestor, now lost.
In previous centuries, decks were sold in paper envelopes rather than boxes. Hismans envelopes are unique works of art with graphic elements taken from the cards. The colors are applied by hand with stencils, then the envelope is numbered and signed. The cards are on sturdy, smooth paper, 2.75 x 4.75 inches – a very nice size for shuffling.
There are only 400 decks in this edition, so don’t procrastinate. Read more about the deck and Hismans’ working methods, and purchase the deck here:
https://www.tarotsheetrevival.com/en/product/adam-c-de-hautot-tarot/