From Touchstone TarotTM by Kat Black
Nine of Cups
Meanings
Wishes granted. Health, happiness and fulfillment of worldly desires. New friendships, parties and good times. A gracious host who anticipates your every want.
Reversed (?)
Careful what you wish for. You can have too much of a good thing. Do not let your popularity crowd out the relationships with those most dear to you.
Description
A mature, clean-shaven man in a black and sable fur coat sits at a wooden table. He is holding a rust-colored sash, and a bowl of cherries sits beside him. On a wooden shelf above him, nine cups are arranged in an arc.
This is one of several portraits of Erasmus painted by his friend Hans Holbein the Younger. Erasmus put in a good word for Holbein with the Tudor court in England, but then they had a falling out, purportedly because Holbein took money from the nobility there for portraits he never quite got around to painting.
Artwork
- Cup: MEMLING, Hans, St John and Veronica Diptych, c.1483, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
- Blue wall: HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger, Robert Cheseman, 1533, Mauritshuis, The Hague.
- Man: HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1523, National Gallery, London.
- Table: CHRISTUS, Petrus, St Eligius in His Workshop, 1449, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- Hat jewels: BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans, Count Philip, 1517, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
- Bowl cherries: BEERT, Osias, Still Life with Cherries and Strawberries in China Bowls, 1608, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
