The card shows a woman leaning against a tree. She's quite beautiful but her face and figure are more voluptuous than elegant. She wears revealing clothes for her time; in fact I have recently learned that she is in her underclothes, which I did not realize at the time I made the card. The top is a corset cover and the skirt is a petticoat, which is why they are so revealing. There's a low rail in front of the woman and wild foliage behind her.

The original version of this card was a different woman, sitting back in a sort of chaise and holding a fan. She was a more elegant figure but did also have a sensual expression on her face. If I recall correctly she was wearing an Empire style gown, so it must have been a historical illustration. But it came from a Dover clip art book so I don't know the origin of the image.

I didn't have really strong feelings one way or the other about the original Empress, but I did have a general desire to use as little Dover art as possible so the deck would look less "clip art." When I found the new figure, she looked like the Empress to me and so I redid the card.

She was in an illustration for an article about Englishmen vacationing in France. She was standing in a doorway or maybe a balcony, leaning against the wall with that rail in front of her. The caption, appropriately enough, was "Pleasure."

The person who told me that she was in her underwear also suggested that she might be a prostitute. That would certainly put an interesting spin on the card but I'm not sure if she is or not. I will need to go back to the library and read the article, which I haven't had a chance to do because I just found this out a few days ago.

The foliage comes from a botanical garden, and you can see little bits of the glass roof behind the leaves if you look closely. I can't remember where the tree came from. Possibly the same illustration as the man in the 3 of Wands -- I remember that he was standing next to a tree on a hilltop – but I'm not sure.

I have to admit that this is one of the few cards in the deck where I am disappointed in the execution. Two things mainly: first, she's kind of crooked, her shoulder isn't actually up against the tree, and that is just sloppy. I really wish I had noticed that and fixed it before sending the originals to Llewellyn.

Second, the railing in front of her does not at all fit with the meaning of this card. We tried to come up with something to say about it in the book, but it seems really forced to me. I tried to get rid of the railing by covering it with more of those leaves, but I would have had to completely cover the lower half of her body. That would have caused its own problems, because obscuring her behind the branches makes her more like the High Priestess. So I left the railing as it was.

Now that I've started working with digital collage I could probably eliminate the railing in Photoshop, but that was then and this is now. I read a review of the deck where someone criticized the railing, saying that it didn't work with the meaning of the Empress. They might be surprised to know that I agree with them. I really dislike the railing, but this is the kind of compromise that is sometimes necessary in collage.

The only other interesting thing I can think of regarding the Empress is that someone wrote to me a few weeks ago to tell me that she looks like the Empress in my deck. She said that a friend told her "You're the empress,"and she said "I know," and the friend said "No, you're the empress in a victoria tarot deck online." Which is a funny story I think! I asked her for a photo of herself but she hasn't sent it yet.

Yours, Sarah
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Victoria Regina Tarot
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