Judgement in 7 decks
The same card as 7 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.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
An angel with red wings emerges from clouds blowing a trumpet with a white banner marked by a red cross. Below, grey figures rise from open coffins floating on water, a man, a woman and a child in front and more behind, all with arms raised toward the sound. Icy mountains stand on the horizon.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
An angel with a yellow halo and blue and yellow wings leans out of clouds, blowing a long trumpet that carries a blue banner with a yellow cross. Red and yellow rays fan out around him. Below, a figure seen from behind rises from a red tomb, flanked by a naked woman and an older man with joined hands. Numbered XX, titled LE JUGEMENT.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
An angel with red wings emerges from clouds blowing a trumpet with a white banner marked by a red cross. Below, grey figures rise from open coffins floating on water, a man, a woman and a child in front and more behind, all with arms raised toward the sound. Icy mountains stand on the horizon.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
An angel with a yellow halo and blue and yellow wings leans out of clouds, blowing a long trumpet that carries a blue banner with a yellow cross. Red and yellow rays fan out around him. Below, a figure seen from behind rises from a red tomb, flanked by a naked woman and an older man with joined hands. Numbered XX, titled LE JUGEMENT.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
No number is visible. A dark-haired angel among clouds and red rays blows a long trumpet downward, with a walled building and a distant town behind. At the bottom three naked figures, a woman and two men, rise from a long red tomb with hands raised or joined.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
An old man with a crown and white beard appears at the top holding a sword and a gold orb. Below him two fair-haired angels in white robes blow long crossed trumpets. At the bottom, a young man, a young woman and a grey-haired old man rise from a pink stone tomb before a green hedge, the young pair with hands joined in prayer.
In the Visconti-Sforza deck the number cards show only their suit symbols, and the trumps are unnamed and unnumbered.
Sola Busca
c. 1491
A man in a purple tunic and red hose staggers backwards, one arm flung up, as a column's capital with a ball on top breaks and falls beside him. A blue shield, a blue helmet and a fallen crown lie at his feet. The name NENBROTO is at the top and XX at the left.
Sola Busca trumps are named figures matched to the standard trumps by number only.
Oswald Wirth
Oswald Wirth, 1889
A winged angel in a red cap emerges from clouds and red and yellow rays, blowing a trumpet that carries a red banner with a white cross. Below, three naked figures rise from an open tomb in the ground: a woman with joined hands, a fair-haired figure seen from behind and a bearded man. Below are the number 20, LE JUGEMENT and the Hebrew letter resh.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
A figure in white robes with a dark sash swings a wooden beam to strike a large bronze bell hanging from a wooden torii-like frame. Pale ghostly cranes rise from the ground and wheel up into a pink and orange sunset sky. Two lotus flowers glow at the figure's feet, stone lanterns stand at either side, and dark pines and hills frame the setting sun.