The Emperor

He sits on a stone throne set with rams' heads, an ankh sceptre in his hand, red mountains rising behind him. Pamela Colman Smith drew him in 1909 as settled authority — the ordered counterpart to the Empress's garden. Where her card teems with growing things, his is bare rock and rule. Smith gave all seventy-eight images their staging and gesture in a matter of months, working for a flat fee, and history filed the deck under other names for the better part of a century. Her small 'PCS' monogram sits in the corner. This house prints her name on the plate.

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-00431