About the Etteilla Foundation

Mission

The Etteilla Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the rich cultural heritage of playing cards. By partnering with museums and cultural institutions we help the public better understand and appreciate playing cards’ cultural significance, symbolism, and rich art. We democratize access to art of playing cards and their long held secret use in occult practices by making the hundreds of decks we are preserving alongside key historical documents freely accessible via the Etteilla Foundation website https://etteilla.org

Funding and in-kind donations

The Etteilla Foundation is privately funded by our founder which is committed to ensure its long term financial stability and does not actively seek financial donations. On the other hand, the Foundation is open to receive in-kind donations of rare decks, related books and historical artifacts from collectors that desire to preserve and share their collection with the world. Please contact us if you are interested in partnering with the Foundation to ensure the perennity of your collection.

We expect after being recognized as a 501.3c operating private foundation by the IRS to make such in-kind donations tax deductible in the near-future.

History

The Foundation started as one of the largest private collections of antique playing cards, related books and artifacts. Over the years, realizing the uniqueness and historical importance of the collection, our founder committed to open the collection to the public and ensure the it’s perennity.

In 2021, as a first step, some of the collection rarest decks were digitized and made available online via the website https://ancient.cards

In 2022, following the positive reception of this initial site by the community, we heavily invested in becoming a private foundation and developing the long-term state of art online collection system needed to manage, index, and share hundreds of thousands of cards in a secure and reliable way for the decades to come.

In 2023, the Etteilla Foundation was officially incorporated in the U.S.A as a private foundation and hopefully will be recognized as a 501.3c charitable organization by the IRS. The Foundation etteilla.org website opened to the public in February.