Ace of Cups in 6 decks
The same card as 6 decks draw it, five and a half centuries apart. What stays the same is the card’s core; what changes is where a reading can find something new. The meanings are written for the Rider–Waite–Smith picture; the descriptions here are of each deck’s own. Not in Oswald Wirth, which has no Ace of Cups card.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A hand reaches out of a cloud holding a cup that overflows in five streams into a lily pond below. A white dove descends toward the cup carrying a small wafer marked with a cross, and drops of water hang in the air around it. Nothing is being done here; something is simply being given.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A large yellow cup is shaped like a building, with spires, turrets and a pointed gable rising from its rim. Its red bowl is fringed with blue leaves, its knop holds a red jewel, and it stands on a red base with a zigzag pattern over blue ground. There is no title or number.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A hand reaches out of a cloud holding a cup that overflows in five streams into a lily pond below. A white dove descends toward the cup carrying a small wafer marked with a cross, and drops of water hang in the air around it. Nothing is being done here; something is simply being given.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A large yellow cup is shaped like a building, with spires, turrets and a pointed gable rising from its rim. Its red bowl is fringed with blue leaves, its knop holds a red jewel, and it stands on a red base with a zigzag pattern over blue ground. There is no title or number.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
A single large yellow cup with a leafy boss stands on a stepped base, topped by a cluster of towers and spires like a small castle. The spires are banded in red, grey and yellow, and a grey strip of ground lies beneath.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
A large gold vessel fills the card: a broad hexagonal basin on an embossed bowl and wide stepped foot. A twisted column rises from the basin to a globe set with roundels, topped by a bird with spread wings, and blue-grey streams of water fall from the globe. Green leaves and blue and red flowers surround it.
In the Visconti-Sforza deck the number cards show only their suit symbols, and the trumps are unnamed and unnumbered.
Sola Busca
c. 1491
Three winged infants sit on the rim of a great urn, one pouring water from a jug, one playing a lute and one a pipe. A band round the urn reads TRAHORTATIS, and a shield on its stem is darkened and worn. Small heart-shaped leaves dot the ground, and the numeral 1 is at the right.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
A single ceramic bowl painted with a dark fish and waves stands on a wooden veranda at night, a tall ribbon of pale teal and gold steam rising from it. Pink blossom petals drift down around the steam. A lit paper window glows at left and a stone lantern stands in the dark garden at right; no hand holds the cup.