Minor Arcana, the Cups

Seven of Cups

In Pamela Colman Smith's Seven of Cups (1909), a figure drawn in solid black stands with its back to us before seven gold cups floating in grey clouds. Something different rises out of the top of each cup: a head, a glowing veiled figure, a snake, a tower, jewels, a wreath and a dragon.

What Waite wrote it means (1910)

Divinatory meanings: Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.
Reversed: Desire, will, determination, project.

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 212. Read it in the chapter

Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.

Waite's description of the card, from the same book.

What's in the picture

The watcher. Seen from behind, the figure is a flat black shape, with no face or clothing shown. One arm reaches out toward the cups, the fingers spread, as if in surprise or to hold them off.
The head. In the top left cup sits a young face with curly hair, eyes lowered, coloured a pale blue.
The veiled figure. The middle cup at the top holds a figure under a white sheet, arms spread out at the sides. Red rays blaze out all around it, like a halo.
The snake. Out of the top right cup a long yellow snake with dark spots rises, bends over the rim and hangs down.
The tower. On the left of the lower row, a pale blue tower stands on a rock, rising out of its cup like a little mountain.
The jewels. The next cup overflows with round jewels, red, white and blue, and a string of beads hangs over its edge. Small lines shine out around them.
The wreath. A green laurel wreath stands on the next cup. Look below it on the cup itself: faint marks there make a small skull-like face.
The dragon. In the last cup, on the right, a blue dragon rears up with its wings out and its tail hanging over the side. Waite called all of these "strange chalices of vision".
The clouds. Grey clouds pile up under the cups and behind them, drawn in looping curls. Below the clouds the sky is plain blue.

The card in brief

In the deck: Card 43 of 78
Arcana: Minor Arcana, Cups
Number: Seven
Element (Golden Dawn): Water
Astrology (Golden Dawn): Venus in Scorpio
Title in Book T: Lord of Illusionary Success
Drawn by: Pamela Colman Smith
Planned by: Arthur Edward Waite
Published: London, William Rider & Son, 1909
Scan: Pam-A printing, c. 1910, Wikimedia Commons

In the old books

Book T (1912)
The seven cups are arranged as two descending triangles above a point: a hand, as usual, holds lotus stems which arise from the central lower cup. The hand is above this cup and below the middle one. With the exception of the central lower cup, each is overhung by a lotus flower, but no water falls from these into any of the cups, which are all quite empty. Above and below are the symbols of the Decanate ♀ and ♏︎.
Possible victory, but neutralized by the supineness of the person: illusionary success, deception in the moment of apparent victory. Lying, error, promises unfulfilled. Drunkenness, wrath, vanity. Lust, fornication, violence against women, selfish dissipation, deception in love and friendship. Often success gained, but not followed up. Modified as usual by dignity.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), pp. 185–186. See the source
Papus (1892)
Success assured to the lovers.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 313. See the source