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Petit Lenormand

Alternative Names: The Game of Hope, Das Spiel der Hoffnung, Small Lenormand, Wahrsage-Karten

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Petit Lenormand

Introduction

The Petit Lenormand (Small Lenormand) is a family of 36-card oracle decks that became the dominant form of parlor cartomancy—divination using cards—in Germany and Central Europe during the 19th century. While the decks emerged commercially in the early 1850s, their structural design and iconography were derived from a German board game published in 1799 called Das Spiel der Hoffnung (The Game of Hope).

Despite being named after Marie Anne Lenormand, the most famous French fortune-teller of the Napoleonic era, she had no hand in their creation. The deck’s title was a marketing strategy employed by publishers to capitalize on her posthumous celebrity [1] .

History and Origins

The Namesake: Mademoiselle Lenormand

To understand the deck’s branding, one must understand the figure of Marie Anne Lenormand (1772–1843). Active in Paris during the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Empire, Lenormand achieved unprecedented fame as a cartomancer, counting Empress Josephine among her clientele [2] .

It is crucial to note that Lenormand did not use the 36-card deck that now bears her name. Historical evidence indicates she performed readings using standard playing cards and Piquet packs—a reduced deck of 32 cards (7 through Ace) common in French gaming (Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett 1996, ch. 6). Following her death in 1843, publishers rushed to monetize her reputation. In 1845, a complex 54-card deck titled the Grand Jeu de Mlle. Lenormand (Great Game of Mademoiselle Lenormand) was published in Paris, incorporating astrology and mythology [1] .

The Prototype: The Game of Hope

The structure of the 36-card “Petit” deck originated not in Paris, but in Nuremberg, Germany. In 1799, Johann Kaspar Hechtel, a businessman and game designer, created Das Spiel der Hoffnung (The Game of Hope). Published posthumously in 1800 by Gustav Philipp Jakob Bieling, this was originally a race-style board game played with cards, similar to the Game of the Goose [3] .

The genius of Hechtel’s design was its duality: the cards carried symbolic images (Anchor, Rider, House) for the board game, but also included insets of standard playing cards (German suits). This allowed the deck to be used for the board game, standard card games, or fortune-telling. When the “Petit Lenormand” emerged as a distinct oracle product in the 1850s, it utilized Hechtel’s exact sequence and iconography, stripping away the board game mechanics to focus solely on divination.

Structure and Iconography

The standard Petit Lenormand consists of 36 cards, numbered 1 through 36. Unlike the Tarot, which utilizes a complex system of Major and Minor Arcana, the Lenormand relies on direct, emblematic symbolism. Each card features:

  1. A Central Image: A dominant, everyday symbol such as a Ring, Ship, Bear, or Key.
  2. An Insert: A miniature representation of a standard playing card (e.g., the Nine of Hearts or Ace of Clubs).

This dual-system allowed cartomancers to perform “syntactic” readings—interpreting cards in combination like sentences—rather than solitary archetypes. For example, in a deck produced in Stralsund (c. 1890), card No. 1 features a Rider (news/arrival) with an inset Nine of Hearts; card No. 25 shows a Ring (marriage/contract) with an inset Ace of Clubs; and card No. 36 depicts a Cross (suffering/faith) with an inset Six of Clubs (Keller 1981, 1:224).

Insert Image: [Three cards side-by-side: The Rider (1), The Ring (25), and The Cross (36) from the Stralsund deck, showing the central image and the smaller playing card inset at the top.] Caption: Cards 1, 25, and 36 from a Stralsund Petit Lenormand (c. 1890), illustrating the preservation of Hechtel’s original iconography. [4] .

Industrialization and Popularity

The Petit Lenormand reached its zenith in the latter half of the 19th century. This popularity was fueled by the rapid industrialization of printing in Germany. Manufacturers moved from woodblock printing to chromolithography—a chemical process using limestone plates that allowed for vibrant, multi-colored mass production at a lower cost.

While the Grand Jeu remained a niche product in France, the Petit variant swept through the German-speaking lands [1] . As production expanded, design variations appeared. A notable evolution occurred with the Wahrsage-Karten (Fortune-Telling Cards) manufactured by Bernhard Dondorf of Frankfurt around 1910. In this variation, the inset playing cards were replaced by poetic verses in German, shifting the focus entirely from gaming to oracular advice.

Insert Image: [Several cards from the Dondorf Wahrsage-Karten (1910) showing the replacement of the pip insert with German text.] Caption: The Wahrsage-Karten by Dondorf (c. 1910) replaced the traditional playing card insets with interpretive verse, marking a shift toward purely divinatory use.

The Interwar Decline and Modern Revival

Oracle decks remained a staple of European domestic life until World War I (1914–1918). However, the interwar period saw a gradual decline in the popularity of parlor cartomancy. Simultaneously, the 20th century saw the rise of the Tarot, particularly the Waite-Smith deck (1909), which appealed to a growing interest in esoteric and occult societies. By the mid-20th century, the complex, mystical allure of Tarot had largely eclipsed the direct, folk-oriented Petit Lenormand [5] .

Foundation Collections

The Etteilla Foundation preserves several significant examples of the Petit Lenormand family, documenting its evolution from the mid-19th to early 20th century:

  • Stralsund Petit Lenormand (c. 1890): A classic example of the standard German pattern.
  • Dondorf Wahrsage-Karten (c. 1910): Represents the shift toward text-based oracle cards.
  • ASS Altenburger Oracle (1912): A later printing that closely adheres to the Stralsund visual tradition.

Insert Image: [Fan of cards from the ASS Altenburger 1912 deck.] Caption: Examples from the ASS Altenburger oracle deck (1912), demonstrating the longevity of the standard pattern.

The collection also includes the Jeu du Destin Antique (Antique Game of Destiny), designed by Eugène D’Auriac and published by Grimaud in Paris (1868). While influenced by the Lenormand craze, this deck represents a divergent evolutionary branch. It contains only 32 cards (mirroring the Piquet pack) and replaces Hechtel’s symbols with Romantic-era illustrations of pastoral figures and couples (Keller 1981, 1:168).

Insert Image: [Two cards from the Jeu du Destin Antique showing pastoral scenes.] Caption: The Jeu du Destin Antique (1868) by Grimaud adapts the oracle format to a 32-card Piquet structure with romanticized rural imagery.

References