Tarot culture
Temperance on a tarot card and a bronze plaque
· 2 min · Voyancea · AI-assisted writing
A Tarot de Marseille card and a small bronze plaque share the same title. Their catalog records give us two ways to look at the figure.
Two objects that fit in your hand
Temperance appears on two very different objects in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalog. The first is a woodcut Tarot de Marseille card attributed to Jean Dodat or described as after his work. The sheet is 12 centimeters high and 6.5 centimeters wide. The catalog identifies the card but provides no photograph, so it does not tell us what the figure is wearing or where her hands are in this particular print.
The second object is a bronze plaque by Peter Flötner, made around 1540. It measures 8.1 by 5.2 centimeters. The museum publishes a photograph and identifies it as part of a series depicting the seven virtues. Its record describes the figure’s two cups as vessels for wine and water. That detail is documented for the plaque. A shared title alone does not tell us what the card’s cups contain.
What each catalog record tells us
A ruler gives you a sense of the difference. Draw two rectangles on a sheet of paper using the dimensions of the objects. Both the printed card and the small metal relief take up little space. On a screen, you can enlarge either one until its scale is easy to forget. The rectangles restore that sense of scale and show how little room there is for a figure, a fold of fabric, or a cup.
The title brings the objects together and leaves a question open. How did each artist give this idea a visible form? To answer for the museum card, you would need a reproduction. A card from your own deck can provide a third example if you identify it separately.
Try the comparison with your own deck
For this drawing exercise, open the photo of the plaque and take the Temperance card from a deck you have available. Write down the name of your edition. Choose one detail you can see in both images, such as the position of a cup or the angle of the torso. Describe each separately, then describe how it changes. If your card has no cup, record that difference and choose another shared detail.
In a fictional example, someone notices that the hands are far apart on their card but closer together on the bronze. They draw two simple silhouettes to see how the change affects the sense of movement. They leave with two composition ideas to try in their sketchbook.