Item #5313 The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries. Frederick Van Norstrand, colorist, author, compiler.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.
The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.

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The Twenty-Two Major Arcana of the Tarot. Hand-colored by Frederic Van Norstrand, Student of the Mysteries.

San Francisco, California, 1949–1954. 8vo (23 x 16 cm), full black leather. Typed title leaf, 12 pp. blending manuscript and printed text clipped from an external sources (presumably Van Norstrand’s books and articles), 22 illustrations printed in outline on paperboard and extensively hand-colored in watercolor and gouache (16.5 x 9.5 cm), portrait of Van Norstrand from photo affixed to inside of front cover (9 x 6.5 cm), additional 38 blank pp. [with] 23 cards (15 x 10.5 cm) in front cover pocket. One illustration bears the full printed signature of artist Jessie Burns Parke (1889-1964), others with her monogram.

A striking and apparently unique tarot book assembled by a noted professional astrologer, featuring twenty-two beautiful hand-painted tarot illustrations accompanied by a deck of explanatory cards.

Frederick van Norstrand (1891–1971) was a San Francisco-based astrologer who published a range of books including Gabriel: Angel of Birth, of Dreams and Aspirations (1942) and Precepts of Mundane Astrology (1962), and also appears to have maintained a regular column in the journal American Astrology during the 1940s and ‘50s. Van Norstrand apparently compiled this volume for his own use or that of someone close to him, and also hand-painted the twenty-two illustrations included here. He provides the following manuscript directive on the verso of one of the illustrations: “Simply look at these Tarot Arcana 5 minutes a day, but as you look summon whatever knowledge you have gathered as to the wonderful power of that silent potency, Light, to aid you to understand that the mere act of looking is actually directed use of the same radiant energy which is the basic substance of the whole universe!” The imaginative illustrations include: The Fool (The Fiery or Scintillating Intelligence); Death (The Imaginative Intelligence); the Magician (The Intelligence of Transparency); Hanged Man (The State of Intelligence); The Devil (The Renewing Intelligence); The Star (The Natural Intelligence); The Empress (The Luminous Intelligence); The Hermit (The Intelligence of Will); The Emperor (The Constituting Intelligence); The Tower (The Active, or Exciting Intelligence), and so on.

The twelve pages of text comprise Van Norstrand’s own manuscript, quotations, and printed passages clipped from external sources, some of which are annotated. A few of his annotations explicate the intricacies of the tarot illustrations, while other portions of the text parse out the astrological meanings of colors, which are apparently deployed in Van Norstrand’s coloring of the illustrations.

[with]

Twenty-three explanatory cards corresponding to the twenty-two color illustrations. The first card inscribed “presented to Papa Nikolai by Jim Cunningham May 6 1954.”

CONDITION: Good.

Item #5313

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