The World/Le Monde - Contrasting the Dodal and Conver

I'm going to in this case insert an additional card from a third deck - very much a 'transition' card between the two main decks of contrast, simply because it shows so well the move from one type of imagery to another.

So in this case we have the Dodal, the Chafard, and the Conver:



A number of details emerge.

The first is that the woodblock of the Chafard takes after the Dodal in terms of the depicted cape, though the colour artist has used the Conver-style in placing a red 'band' across the body.

Another is the clear 'transformation' of the figure from a more androgenous or masculine figure to a feminine one. The Chafard here seems to have the Dodal more 'masculine' lines, with, however, clearly additional breasts.

In the Conver, the image is more clearly feminine.

Of course, there is the ongoing claim that the depiction is in any case androgenous, with feminine breasts and masculine genitals. If that is the case, then, with modern genetic understanding, the figure could be depicted with one of the frequent bodies of people having XXY chromosones.

Another fascinating disctinction and move is the depiction of the hair. If one takes the sequence, it is as if the air on the Dodal has been 'merged' with the cape on the Chafard to present what it similar to numerous representations of Mary Magdelene in religious art, her hair reaching to her feet and itself used to partly veil her naked body - though here the usage of tressed 'leaves' is used, as per the Dodal.

Whereas the Dodal has the legs of the figure roughly together (though in apparent motion), the Conver mimics, in reverse, the position of the Hanged Man (the reversed 'mimicking' is also implied, of course, in the numbering, from XII or IIX to XXI).

The arms of the Dodal seem to fall towards the legs, whereas the Conver has her arms partially extended outwards.

As for the Chafard, what is that wand-like item s/he holds in her hand pointing up!?

jmd said:

Of course, there is the ongoing claim that the depiction is in any case androgenous, with feminine breasts and masculine genitals.

Click to expand...

There is a spark of creation, a being emerges,
but the action requires a complete circuit...

First cause is both positive and negative in nature,
and to transmit the spark but not extinguish itself
it emits a negative impulse...

The negative impulse must continue the circuit,
but lacking a positive it also emits a negative...

This double-negative completes the circuit as
the unified positive, back to the first cause:
+/- TO -/- TO -/+

Androgyny thus is not what we are seeing here,
at this point~ but it reflects the point of origin.

Fortune?

I think that the variety in the main character of the World card is peculiar and interesting.

My impression is that in many cases the authors of the World cards have made use of the iconography of Fortune.

Fortune was not always represented as turning her wheel.
Other common images include a globe, a cloth that looks like a sail, wings.

Cesare Ripa proposes many different versions:

Donna con gl'occhi bendati, sopra un albero, con un'asta assai lunga percuota i rami d'esso et ne cadono varii istromenti appartenenti a varie professioni, come scettri, libri, corone, gioie, armi etc.

"A blindfolded woman, on a tree, with a long stick she strikes the branches and from the tree the instruments of different professions fall: like sceptres, books, crowns, jewels, swords etc."

Donna a sedere sopra una palla et a gl'homeri porta l'ali.

"A winged woman sitting on a ball."

Donna co 'l globo celeste in capo e in mano il cornucopia.
Il globo celeste dimostra, sì come egli è continuo moto, così la fortuna sempre si move e muta faccia a ciascuno hor'inalzando et hor'abbassando....
Può anco significare il Globo che la Fortuna vien vinta et superata dalla dispositione celeste, la quale è cagionata et retta dal Signore della Fortuna et della Natura, secondo quello ch'egli ha ordinato ab eterno.

"A woman with the celestial globe on her head, holding a cornucopia.
The celestial globe being always in movement shows how fortune always moves and changes bringing people up and down....
The globe may also mean that Fortune is won by the will of heaven, which is decided by the Lord of Fortune and by Nature, according to what he ordered for ethernity."

Donna a sedere, che si appoggia con il braccio destro sopra una ruota, in cambio del globo celeste, et con la sinistra mano tiene una cornucopia.

"A sitting woman, with her right arm on a wheel, instead of the celestial globe, and with her left hand holding a cornucopia."


The attachment represents the first version of Ripa's Fortune.
I think it is rather similar to the Conver image, and (with Ripa's text) could also provide an explanation for the wand-like object.
On the other hand, the wand-like object could simply be a sceptre (Fortuna imperatrix mundi - fortune in the empress of the World) like in the World card of the pseudo Charles VI deck.


On the tarotpedia World page you find an impressive Fortune standing on a globe by Albrecht Duerer.
The second Ripa's fortune (the winged woman sitting on a globe) reminds me of the Bodet World (you can see it on the same tarotpedia page).

Marco

jmd said:

another.
So in this case we have the Dodal, the Chafard, and the Conver:

Click to expand...

Hello jmd,

Very interesting these (not so) different cards. I tried to find more about the Chafard but did find nothing with Google or here at AT. Can you tell us some more, like when it was published in comparison to the Dodal and the Conver? I really like to know more about this one.
Blessings

Aleph Mem Shin

+/- -/- -/+

I to XIII to XXI

Chafard Deck

Hello JMD and Dwass,
Me also I am curious to know more about Chafard Deck:
Date of Birth, location, country, any copys or scans avaluable ?

I am an amatore searcher and some informations are needed to start a research.
Thanks a lot by advance,

Yves Le Marseillais

Hello Yves,

Le Marseillais said:

Hello JMD and Dwass,
Me also I am curious to know more about Chafard Deck:
Date of Birth, location, country, any copys or scans avaluable ?

I am an amatore searcher and some informations are needed to start a research.
Thanks a lot by advance,

Yves Le Marseillais

Click to expand...

The Chafard family (also spelled Chaffard) were an 18th century family who made cards in Marseille and Béziers. The Monde card in jmd's post is illustrated in "Schweizer Spielkarten 2" (Schaffhausen, 2004), pp. 160-161 (catalogue number 22).

The deck is named as "Joseph Chafard" and dated on the 2 of Deniers as 1747. There is a Bacchus on the 2 of Cups. Thierry Depaulis made the historical notes on the decks illustrated in the catalogue, and he knew that the Chafards were prominent in Béziers. But because he also knew that there is no indication that tarot cards were ever made in Béziers (or anywhere in the south, west of the Rhône in fact), he tentatively assigned it to Marseille.

As I explain below, I believe that the cardmaker Joseph Chafard is to be identified as the oldest son of Louis Chaffard of Béziers from his third marriage.

The two main sources of information about the Chaffards are:

(ed. "R.M.") "La carte à jouer en Languedoc, des origines à 1800" (Toulouse, Musée Paul Dupuy, 1971), pp. 41-43 and 95.

Raymond Ros, _Les Maitres-Cartiers Biterrois au XVIIIe Siècle et l'Aventure du Cartier Chaffard_, printed in J.-D. Bergasse, ed. "Hommage à Jacques Fabre de Morlhon, Mélanges historiques et généalogiques, Rouergue - Bas-Languedoc" (Albi, 1978) pp. 393-402.

H.-R. d'Allemagne first collected data on the Chaffard family of cartiers.

From these three researchers, I constructed the following family tree and deduced certain facts:

Louis Dreveton (Maître-cartier de Marseille) had daughter Françoise, who lived until 1722. Françoise married Louis Chaffard, who would have four wives:

____1). Françoise Dreveton (?-ca. 1722)
____2). Françoise Bernard (?-ca. 1727)
____3). Anne or Marie-Rose Brès (?-1733)
____4). Claire Landes

With Françoise Dreveton (1), Louis had four children:
____1). Jean-Louis (1718-?)
____2). Lucrese
____3). Marguerite
____4). Charles-Roch (1721-?)

With Françoise Bernard (2), Louis had 3 children:
____1). Estienne (1723-?)
____2). Marie (1724-?)
____3). Catharine (1725-?)

With Anne or Marie-Rose Brès (3), Louis had 2 children:
____1). Joseph-Louis (1728-?)
____2). Antoine (1730-?)

With his last wife Claire Landes (4), no children are noted.

D'Allemagne guesses that Louis Chaffard went from Béziers to Marseille around 1750 (II, 404). But Ros found that Louis Chaffard, cartier of Béziers, was in fact dead in 1749. In order to account for this apparent contradiction, Ros suggests the following scenario: surmising (probably correctly) that Louis Dreveton was the father of Chaffard's first wife, and noting that Dreveton was the god-father of Jean-Louis in 1718, and was listed as a witness to Louis Chaffard's last wedding, to Claire Landes, in 1733, Ros suggests that the grandfather raised his grandson Jean-LOUIS in Marseille after the death of his daughter, Jean-Louis' mother, in 1721 or 1722.

However, according to Ros, Jean-Louis (in addition to being a card-maker) is attested as fourth consul of Béziers from 1734-1737, and again from 1742-1749. It seems unlikely that he could have exercised the profession of cartier in Marseille as well! (this is a mistake of Ros' - see further below). Given that Dreveton was close enough to Chaffard to be a witness to his fourth marriage, it seems plausible that instead of his own grandchildren, Dreveton might have taken the two *youngest* of Chaffard's children, from his 3rd marriage, to Marseille, where one of them, JOSEPH-Louis, might have become the cardmaker whose name appears on the tarot of 1747. If so, he would have been only 19 years old when the moulds were carved.

Moreover, although D'Allemagne tells us to be careful not to confuse Louis Chaffard of Béziers with the Louis Chaffard of Marseille (II, 404), he does not give proof that the Chaffard mentioned in Marseille in 1753 actually had the first name "Louis" when he alludes to the document mentioning him in vol. II, pp. 319-320. Moreover, in his indices, he refers to this Marseillais as only "Chaffard", with no prénom. We therefore have room to suspect that it was another Chaffard who went from Béziers to Marseille (or who was native to Marseille).

Here are excerpts of a study I sent to Thierry Depaulis. He agrees with my conclusions -

"I finally have some time this weekend to do a little study. Attached are the family relations among the Chaffards that I have culled from Ros' article, and a comment about D'Allemagne and Ros. Louis Chaffard, cartier of Béziers, married the (likely) daughter of Louis Dreveton, maître-cartier of Marseille around 1718. I don't know if the marriage took place in Béziers or Marseille, but Louis' entire career was spent in Béziers.

I believe the best suggestion is that one of Louis Chaffard's sons from his third marriage, Joseph-Louis Chaffard, is the card maker named on the remains of the tarot illustrated in Schweizer Spielkarten 2. It is not clear from D'Allemagne that the Chaffard in Marseille in 1753 was actually named "Louis" Chaffard, as both he (cf. II, 319-320 with II, 404) and Ros (depending on him) think.

On page 396 Ros writes : "Jean-Louis était encore en 1748 et 1749 quatrième consul de Béziers, fonctions qu'il avait exercées de 1734 à 1737 et de 1742 à 1749..."

On checking through the pièces jusificatives, I noted that "Jean-Louis Chaffard" is never mentioned as a cartier in Béziers - only Louis. Furthermore, "Jean-Louis" would only have been 16 (if not 15) in 1734, when he is supposed to have been consul of Béziers!

In fact, Jean-Louis may have nothing at all to do with this tale. Neither Ros nor D'Allemagne knew the "Jospeh Chaffard" tarot, so we are looking for a Joseph, not a Louis, nor a Jean-Louis.

I think it much more likely to be Marseille, only because tarots are not known in Béziers (to the best of my knowledge), and only Louis and Charles Roch Chaffard are known as cartiers de Béziers. The little Bacchus (on the 2 of Cups) may then be the younger Chaffard's way of recognizing his origins (the cultivation of the vine has always been the first industry of our region), or simply a typical card deck image."

I would be glad to offer any further assistance to you Yves - seeing that you are in Marseille and all!

Ross

Shin Mem Aleph

__+/- -/- -/+

XXI to XIII to I

Chafard Deck

Hello Ross and Fulgour,

Thanks Ross for your explinations and I would be very pleased to one day have a in depth look in this Chafard Deck.
A sort of missing link may be between Dodal and Conver ?
Jean Claude Flornoy will be in Marseilles in July and it could be interesting to exchange views knowing that I am only a poor lonesome Tarot amatore (Lucky Fool ?).

Foulgour I have to say that my mathematic knowledge is very poor.
I can make additions divisions and substractions but for - and + symbols I am lost...
Furtheremore, I am not very atracted by Hebraic symbols or letters.
May be I am loosing important things but feel free to develop your threads.
Thanks by advance.
Yves

I intend to add more comments shortly, but I wanted to point out the halos on the figures on the four corners.

Both the Dodal and the Chafard indicate halos on all four, whereas the Conver seems to have lost the halo on the Bull.

best,
robert