Six of Wands 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 Six of Wands card.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A rider on a white horse, wreathed in laurel, carries a staff topped with a second wreath while men on foot walk beside him holding their own staffs upright. The horse is draped in green and the rider sits tall. The crowd is with him, for now.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
Six staves, red and yellow, cross in two bundles of three, their middles woven through blue straps with four red diamonds. A red flower on a stem rises at the top and another hangs at the bottom, and long wavy yellow leaves with red buds spread to each side. Numeral VI at each side.
Marseille number cards are read through their number and suit; the written meaning here gives the scene the Rider-Waite-Smith card adds.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A rider on a white horse, wreathed in laurel, carries a staff topped with a second wreath while men on foot walk beside him holding their own staffs upright. The horse is draped in green and the rider sits tall. The crowd is with him, for now.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
Six staves, red and yellow, cross in two bundles of three, their middles woven through blue straps with four red diamonds. A red flower on a stem rises at the top and another hangs at the bottom, and long wavy yellow leaves with red buds spread to each side. Numeral VI at each side.
Marseille number cards are read through their number and suit; the written meaning here gives the scene the Rider-Waite-Smith card adds.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
Two bundles of three batons cross in a tall X, their grey centres woven into a lattice. Red stems curl outward to blue flowers at each side, with a star-like flower above and a yellow leafy blossom below.
Viéville number cards show only their suit symbols; read them through number and suit, with the written meaning as a guide.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
Six blue staves with dark gold baluster ends cross three by three to form a lattice of diamonds, small gold lozenges at the crossings and green sprigs inside. There is no ribbon. Blue flowers sit at the top and bottom, and green vines run up the sides within a red border.
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 short blue tunic and red stockings carries six staves over his shoulder, bound with a purple ribbon. He holds a small lantern with a candle inside, and his tunic rides up to bare his buttocks. The numeral 6 is at the right.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
Seen from behind, a man in a worn rust-coloured jacket with his hair tied up walks into a misty bamboo forest, carrying a large bundle of green bamboo tubes slung across his back with rope. His shoulders are bent under the load. A red maple tree glows at upper right and red leaves fall around him.