The Sun 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
A naked child with a feather in their hair rides bareback on a white horse, arms flung wide, carrying a huge red banner. Behind them a wall is topped with tall sunflowers, and above everything a vast sun with a human face pours down straight and wavy rays. There is no shade anywhere in the picture.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A large yellow sun with a calm face and straight and wavy red and yellow rays sheds coloured drops. Beneath it, two children with grey hair and blue loincloths stand on yellow ground before a low red-brick wall, one with a hand on the other's chest and shoulder. Numbered XVIIII, titled LE SOLEIL.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A naked child with a feather in their hair rides bareback on a white horse, arms flung wide, carrying a huge red banner. Behind them a wall is topped with tall sunflowers, and above everything a vast sun with a human face pours down straight and wavy rays. There is no shade anywhere in the picture.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A large yellow sun with a calm face and straight and wavy red and yellow rays sheds coloured drops. Beneath it, two children with grey hair and blue loincloths stand on yellow ground before a low red-brick wall, one with a hand on the other's chest and shoulder. Numbered XVIIII, titled LE SOLEIL.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
Numbered XIX, a large sun with a stern face shines over a naked child riding a grey horse to the left. The child holds a long red banner on a pole over his shoulder, a red cross marks the horse's saddle cloth, and drops fall from the sky.
Visconti-Sforza
Bonifacio Bembo, c. 1450
A naked winged child with dark wings, a coral necklace and a red sash runs across a dark blue cloud, holding up a red sun with a face and rays. Below lies a landscape of green hills with a small tower on the left. Two pale patches near the top show where the gold has worn away, and a red band runs along the foot.
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 bearded king in a spiked crown and purple armour looks upward, a long staff over his shoulder and loose cords in his other hand. A blue shell-like shape curls at his waist and something pale arches over his back. The name SABINO is at the top and XVIIII at the right.
Sola Busca trumps are named figures matched to the standard trumps by number only.
Oswald Wirth
Oswald Wirth, 1889
A gold sun with a calm face sends out straight gold rays and wavy red ones, and coloured drops fall beneath it. Two near-naked young figures in red and blue loincloths stand together in a ring of grass, one with an arm around the other, before a low wall of red, yellow and blue bricks. Below are the number 19, LE SOLEIL and the Hebrew letter qoph.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
Two laughing children in summer kimonos, one red and one yellow, run hand in hand towards us along a lantern-lit path. A huge glowing orange sun fills the sky behind them, carp streamers fly from poles, and orange leaves drift down. Sunflowers bloom at left and below, and this card has a bright yellow border rather than the usual dark one.