Classic Tarot
Alternative Names: Animal Tarot, Tarock, Spieltarock
"Classic Tarot" refers to the family of 78-card decks designed primarily for card games rather than esoteric or occult purposes. While they share the structural skeleton of the deck known today in fortune-telling circles—40 pip cards (numerals), 16 court cards, and 22 trumps—their imagery often diverges significantly from the allegorical archetypes of the Marseille or Waite-Smith traditions.
These decks were, and in some regions remain, the standard equipment for playing Tarock (or Tarot), a family of trick-taking games that requires players to follow suit and use trump cards to win "tricks" (rounds of play). This genre of deck found immense popularity across the German-speaking lands, the Swiss Confederacy, and the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands).
Decks
History
The history of the Classic Tarot deck is intertwined with the evolution of the game itself. Structurally, these decks are identical to those used for divination: they contain four suits (Swords, Batons/Clubs, Cups/Hearts, Coins/Diamonds) and a sequence of superior cards known as trumps. However, the iconography of the 22 trumps in Classic decks often evolved away from the traditional Italian allegories (the Pope, the Devil, Judgment) toward secular themes such as animals, veduta (scenic views), or daily life.
The source text suggests that Classic Tarot decks developed in the decades following the appearance of the first “Divination Tarot” decks in Italy, specifically citing the Visconti-Sforza decks of the 1440s as divination tools (Kaplan 1978, chps. 4–6).
[Editor’s Note]: Historical consensus regarding the use of 15th-century decks varies. While the source text categorizes the Visconti-Sforza decks (Milan, c. 1440) as “Divination Tarot,” most playing card historians, including Michael Dummett, assert that these early Italian decks were created exclusively for the game of Trionfi (Triumphs) and that systematic occult usage did not arise until the late 18th century [1] .
Regardless of their initial application, the use of tarot cards spread rapidly from northern Italian centers—Milan, Bologna, Ferrara, Florence—to the rest of Europe by the end of the fifteenth century. As the cards crossed the Alps into France, Switzerland, and Austria, the game evolved into variants such as Droggn, Taroc L’Hombre, and Cego [2] .
The Rise of the Animal Tarot
As the game of Tarock matured in the eighteenth century, a specific sub-genre known as the Animal Tarot (Tarot Animaux) became the dominant pattern in Germany, Denmark, and the Low Countries. In these decks, the traditional anthropomorphic trumps were replaced by illustrations of beasts—deer, dogs, rabbits, bears, and lions—appealing to a rural or hunting-oriented sensibility. The Fool, however, was generally retained as a specialized card within the game [3] .
One of the notable early producers of this style was Jean Friedrich Mayer, a cardmaker active in Copenhagen in 1752. Mayer, whose name suggests a background in Flanders or Alsace, likely brought the woodblocks—carved wooden stamps used to transfer ink to paper—with him to Denmark to establish his production [4] .
A quintessential example of this style is the Animal Tarot produced by Francois-Jean Vandenborre in Brussels, within the Austrian Netherlands, circa 1770. The design proved so enduring that Fabrique de Daveluy, a major Belgian manufacturer, continued to print close variants of the Vandenborre pattern well into the mid-nineteenth century [5] .
Insert Image: The Fool and selected trump cards from the Tarot Animaux by Fabrique de Daveluy.
Caption: A mid-19th century “Animal Tarot” printed by Daveluy (c. 1850), demonstrating the persistence of the Vandenborre pattern. Note the retention of The Fool alongside naturalistic animal subjects.
19th-Century Innovation and Exoticism
By the nineteenth century, the visual language of Classic Tarot decks expanded further. Manufacturers began utilizing chromolithography, a chemical printing process that allowed for more vibrant and consistent colors than earlier woodblock stenciling. This era saw trumps featuring diverse themes ranging from natural history to genre scenes of hunting and domestic life.
Notable Frankfurt-based maker B. Dondorf produced high-quality luxury decks, including an 1887 Classic Tarot that featured “double-ended” trumps—cards with two images mirrored on the top and bottom, allowing players to recognize the card without rotating it (O’Donoghue 1901, 95).
Manufacturers also capitalized on the era’s fascination with “exotic” cultures, driven by European imperialism and the expansion of global trade. In 1870, the Paris-based firm Editions Lequart released the Original Tarot Chinois (Chinese Tarot). The trumps depicted scenes inspired by the Qing dynasty, reflecting a renewed European interest in China following the re-establishment of trade relations after a long period of isolation [6] .
Insert Image: Selected trumps from the Original Tarot Chinois.
Caption: Trumps from the Original Tarot Chinois by Editions Lequart (1870). These cards reflect the late 19th-century European fascination with Eastern aesthetics, known as Chinoiserie.
Decline and Legacy
The ubiquity of Classic Tarot decks waned significantly in the twentieth century. This decline correlated with the shrinking player base for traditional games like Tarock and Cego (Dummett 1980, xxvi). Simultaneously, the “Tarot Revival” of the late 1960s and 1970s focused almost exclusively on the occult and divinatory potential of the cards, prioritizing decks like the Rider-Waite-Smith or Thoth over the gaming patterns of continental Europe. Consequently, while historically significant, Classic Tarot decks are less frequently encountered today than they were during their peak in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [7] .