The Little Fortune-teller, C. 1877—complete With Description

[FORTUNE-TELLING DECK]. [PETIT LE NORMAND]. Le Petit Cartomancien. Fortune-telling deck.

Paris: B. P. Grimaud, n.d. [ca. 1877].

36 color cards (8.5x5.5 cm), an in-24 booklet of 15-(1) pages in the publisher’s printed binding, all housed in a wine-red percaline case, one side of which is adorned with a historical lithograph.

One of the case’s short sides is missing; the other has been clumsily repaired with adhesive tape.

A fine copy, complete with the small explanatory booklet.

This divinatory card deck, known as the Petit Lenormand, consists of 36 cards with rounded corners and tarot-style backs featuring a blue trompe-l’œil checkerboard pattern, bearing the inscription “B. P. Grimaud. Paris "France"" on the face cards and a tax stamp on the Ace of Clubs. It comes with a small booklet containing the rules of the game titled “The Art of Reading Cards with the Petit Cartomancien or Petit Le Normand,” printed in Rennes by Oberthür in 1877.

The deck takes its name from the famous fortune-teller Anne-Marie Le Normand (1772–1843), to whom its invention is mistakenly attributed.