Nouveau Jeu De La Main (Grimaud)

Nouveau Jeu De La Main. Grimaud, France. Bespoke divinatory deck, 58 single-headed cards + instruction booklet. Size: 63mm x 118mm.

Deck make-up:
The classical planets (each of Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun): 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Queen, King, Ace.
Extras: querent cards x2.

This palmistry deck (the title means "Game of the Hand") was developed in the 19th century by Adele Moreau, a student of the famous Mademoiselle Lenormand. It was first released c.1890 by Grimaud in France. Various other editions, including a bilingual French/English edition (Palmistry) and a solely English edition (The Palmistry), were later issued and a modern version of the deck is still available today.

The cards each have a planetary association and are in one of seven colours; they also each have a playing-card association or two (yes, it's one of those "throw in everything and it might work" prediction tools). As common with many tarots, each card has two predictive meanings: one if the card is dealt upright and one if it is dealt reversed. Then there's the all-important palm print – different on each card – given with all its lines and bumps. But the whole modus operandi here (the idea of a palm-reading tool which uses fixed pictures rather than real hands) seems absurdly illogical to me from the outset. The instruction booklet (in French) is below for anybody who wants to try to figure it out – maybe I've missed something?

Click on any card to explore the design.

(Comments or corrections, please e-mail: Click to see e-mail address.)

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