Hi Ross

OK OK I follow your advise and wait a little for my blade...

Personnaly I would have open the book

But I am too passionate I know I know. This is what say my wife ;)

History is made of destruction, reconstruction, speculations and cycles.

Our best discoverys are in front of us in close future.

Best

Yves

You re right Yves and I m agree...

[quote="Yves Le Marseillais"]
History is made of destruction, reconstruction, speculations and cycles.


XIII: Destruction // XIIII: Reconstruction // VI: Speculations // X: Cycles.

;)

Well jmd! Shades of the Shroud of Turin lol.
I am presuming that the deck you have is a reproduction not the original ( if You have an original.... where do keep it? I am a bone fide member of the Beagle Boys)
What struck me from the ghost sepia is that the Emperor appears to be leaning on a chariot of some sort- I have never seen that aspect before-so thank you.
I have seen this Ghosting on labels for wine bottles, but never in reverse- how odd.
~Lorredan

Sorry, but there is no mystery here.

This is called "offsetting". It's simply a printing defect.
When you print the black key plate, and you are careless enough to let another piece of paper sit on top of it before it dries, a faint bit of oil and ink can be transferred onto the second sheet. Of course, the image is reversed, just as it was reversed when it came off the woodblock. (In other words, double reversed.)

It can happen either before or after the second sheet is printed.

It's not unusual for only a few cards to carry an offset image, due to uneven dry time, uneven inking, incomplete contact, etc.

Here's an example from an 1840 Italian deck.
You can easily see a reversed image of VI L'Amore in the background.
Four other cards in the deck have similar printing errors.

And on an unrelated note...
How about that armrest on his throne? Pretty clever, no?
This is an Italian artist "talking" about the Tarot de Marseille design in 1840.
It seems he is more interested in the eagle than the shield....

Hello OnePotatoe and all,

Your card is really interesting.
Could you details me author: Name, location in Italy.
Is this deck in a Museum and where.
Arm rest is particular indeed and on first sight I saw a "Griffon" but it is more probably an eagle of course.

I will be in Italy (North for this time: Milan, Venise area) and would be please to have informations about italians decks and Musums where were decks are located.
You seems more informed than me about Italie.
I also appreciated his "Sceptre" that reminds me Babylone Exposition in Paris Le Louvre I saw one month ago.
A stone made sceptre was looking same. More or less.

I agree with your explinations about ghost traces anyway and appreciates this lines because they really shows us initial drawing/carving.

Best,

Yves

Hello Yves.

It is a Lombardy style deck, circa 1840.
The 2 of coppe reads "FABBRICA DI GIRO. MONTALENTI IN TORINO"
I believe that is either Girolamo or Girobaldi Montalenti, according to Kaplan.

It's not in a museum.
It used to hang in my living room, but I have recently moved it out into the hall.

Actually, I don't know much about traveling in Italy.
You might do better to ask Lorredan.

Very interesting indeed One Potato !!!

Part of the reason I had not thought anything of it before is that I too had just considered it in the manner mentioned... until I realised that out of the WHOLE deck, this is the ONE CARD THAT SHOWS THIS, and in a reversed manner, virtually perfectly placed, and for the one card that is often shown mirror imaged.

Now in considering ALL this together is why I thought it more important.

Of course it may simply be as a result of printing processes and that just this card was affected in just this way.

Other possibilities, however, are there, given the specific card under consideration and given its unique status (from the high res. scans I have - not the actual physical deck), I think that perhaps there may be more to it.

The ghosted image is ALWAYS reversed, by its very nature.

My Montalenti deck has five cards with this "problem."
The rest of the deck appears to be clean, though perhaps I should take a closer look to see if there are any less obvious marks on other cards.
One of these days, I will pull it out of the frame and see if the ghosted images line up in a block, and if the back patterns align on the cards. (This will demonstrate the layout of the sheet.)
I am curious as to whether decks were assembled from cards of the same sheets? Or were piles of each card made after cutting, so that decks were made up of cards that came from various random sheets.

So in the end, is it significant in this deck also, on these particular cards, or is it significant only in the case of the Noblet Emperor?