The Waite–Smith Deck
Temperance
Measured flow — the patient blending that names the card.
- Work
- from the 1909 Waite–Smith deck
- Plate
- Major Arcana · Key 14
- Maker
- Pamela Colman Smith, for A. E. Waite
- Date
- 1909
- Source
- Published London, 1909 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source plate — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
A winged figure pours liquid between two cups, one foot on land and one in the water, an iris blooming at the pool's edge. Pamela Colman Smith drew the card in 1909 as measured flow — the patient blending that gives the card its name. On the figure's breast, a square and triangle; on the path behind, a crown of light between two peaks. Smith completed the full deck in a matter of months for a flat fee, uncredited for the better part of a century. Find the stream running between the vessels, and the small 'PCS' monogram at the lower edge of the plate.
See it on your wall
The plate, in your home
Temperance printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate — from the 1909 Waite–Smith deck (1909), held by Published London, 1909 · scan: Wikimedia Commons. The work was published before 1931 and is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper; framed pieces sit behind acrylic, no mat.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our plates cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans available, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the emblem line, the letterpress bite, the registration of colour — on stock made to outlive its owner.
From the same hand
