The Devil

A horned figure crouches on a half-cube, a torch in one hand, a man and a woman chained loosely at its feet. Pamela Colman Smith drew it in 1909 as the mirror-image of the Lovers — the same pair, now bound, though the chains hang loose enough to lift. It is a card about self-made bondage, drawn without melodrama. Smith gave the deck its whole visual argument in a matter of months for a flat fee, and went uncredited for a hundred years. Notice the inverted star above the horns, the loosened chains, and the 'PCS' monogram low in the frame.

Maker

Pamela Colman Smith, for A. E. Waite

Date

1909

Medium of the original

Plate

Original held by

Published London, 1909 · scan: Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Published London, 1909 · scan: Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00442