Wheel of Fortune

What is drawn on the card

A great wheel marked with letters and alchemical signs turns in the clouds. A sphinx with a sword sits on top, a serpent descends on one side, and a jackal-headed figure rises on the other; the four winged creatures read the corners: an angel, an eagle, a bull and a lion.

As Pamela Colman Smith drew it in 1909. Our paintings follow these scenes.

Hebrew letter

Kaph

Planet

Jupiter

The letter and sign are 19th-century occult attributions (Golden Dawn), not part of the card’s origin.

Where the card comes from

• Tarot began as a card game in 15th-century Italy. The earliest record is from Florence in 1440, and the game is still played today in France, Austria and Bologna.
• Reading the cards for fortunes is documented from Bologna around 1750, with ordinary playing decks.
• In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote that the cards came from ancient Egypt. There is no evidence for it, and he wrote before anyone could read hieroglyphs (1822).
• The Hebrew letters and astrological signs on each card are 19th-century French and English occult attributions; the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888) fixed the set most readers use.
• The scenes follow the 1909 Waite–Smith deck, designed by A. E. Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. The Innerverse cards are our own paintings of those scenes.

Sources: Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot (1980); Morgan Library & Museum, Visconti-Sforza tarot, MS M.630; Court de Gébelin, Le Monde primitif, vol. VIII (Paris, 1781); A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911).