Baroque Bohemian Cats Tarot

HudsonGray

Oh God, those tiny, tiny pattern pieces!

Actually, the more we know about the deck, process & cats, the more interesting it all is!

Please keep the info coming, that's what this list is here for. I don't think any other deck was done quite like this one is. Possibly some greeting cards in the past, but for a tarot deck, no.

Will you auction off the costumes on ebay when it's over? There are lots of historical costumers out there who would love to pick something like this up.
 

baba-prague

To tell you the truth, the costumes may not be in a fit state to auction off once we've used them. To get the right shapes and poses we often have to pin them, tack them, weight them down, all sorts of stuff. We've had several seams give way because we are using thin silks, which of course are fragile. Anna has been very good about this. If it was my work I would be upset to see it damaged in any way, but she is just very focused on getting the right overall effect. Her work is amazing, we couldn't believe it when she produced the first tiny pieces. The little corset dresses are the best, they are often finished with gorgeous stitching and trims. The only slight problem is keeping them out of the hands of the children who are in the studio sometimes - we did find one dress left on a teddy-bear!

No, I don't think a deck has been done this way before. I think that should tell us something (as in, it is really a very fiddly and slow way to proceed :) ). However, like I say, we sort of got into it tentatively and then really began to like the results. It gets very close to kitsch at some points, but I think we manage to avoid that - we definitely don't want "cute" either. As I say, my absolute inspiration is films like Lord of the RIngs and Harry Potter (and of course the ever-wonderful Amadeus) in which the attention to detail is fantastic and the impossible seems real. We can't rival that of course, but we can at least try to make a whole coherent world.

Knight of Swords to come. I think the King will have to wait as we are not happy with the background.
 

baba-prague

The Knight of Swords

Here she/he is - Babetta as the Knight of Swords!

(sorry, it's also very small - again, I'll try to get it uploaded on our site at a larger size as soon as I can)
 

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Alta

The more of these cards I see the more impressed I am. What wonderful attention to detail and yet keeping the whole. This is amazing work!
 

baba-prague

a slightly larger scan of Queen of Swords

Thank-you. I think it's partly a warning about what happens when you put three slight obsessive-compulsive humans together with a bunch of cats :)


Here is an easier to see Queen of Swords:
http://www.tarotofprague.com/cats/c_queen_swds-small.jpg

The problem is, this is going to be one of those decks (like Tarot of Prague but I think even more so) where it will be almost impossible to see the detail in scans. She is actually sitting in front of a table held by a bulldog (presumably under control!) and on top of which sits a porcelain depiction of "sight" complete with mirror, hawk and telescope. Behind is the fabulously pink tower of Cesky Krumlov Castle.
On her gown are butterflies, as a nod to the RWS card.
Anyway, I hope SOME of this is possible to see. Maybe we could all do with that telescope.
____

There will now be a short interval (as the BBC used to say) before the next card, as we have to do some work on the book cover and card packaging.
 

dolphinprincess

I tried to view this deck the other day, but the links wouldn't work... finally I got them to open..

This deck is AWESOME!!! I just love it!!!!! Can't say enough nice things about it... !!!!!!!
 

Dark_angel

I love this deck!
 

baba-prague

Thank-you. Must say I am so much loving doing it. That yellow silk dress that you can see Anna sewing in the photos arrived in the post today (she had to take time off over Christmas). IT IS GORGEOUS. Has a red rose at the bodice and dripping gold lace. However, we have done all the major photos for female characters, so we'll just have to re-photograph one - this dress is too good not to use.

Here, for completeness, is a larger Knight of Swords. Also a close-up of The Empress so that the detail is a bit easier to see. Her fan was an extravagence but we had to have it for this card. It is a miniature 1920s fan in celluloid made to look like mother of pearl - with real peacock feathers. Wonderful. (if we have to I suppose we can auction that later, though I guess I'll never want to part with it).

Probably no more cards for a while though - we need to do this new photography and we have only just finished the design for the book cover. But by the weekend I hope we'll have one more. I want it to be the Nine of Cups as I love the cat on that card. But it's really up to Alex.

http://www.tarotofprague.com/cats/c_kn_swrd_small.jpg

http://www.tarotofprague.com/cats/empress-closeup.jpg
 

Astra

Good grief! If you ever do decide to auction that fan, it will probably cover the costs of printing the first edition of the deck. Utterly incredible.
 

baba-prague

Hi Astra,

Isn't it something? We have a little shop here that specialises in decorative antiques. It's run by a very knowledgeable and nice woman. She seems to find things that are really special. The fan was not in fact all that much money (seemed like a biggish purchase to us, but it wasn't really). She has some amazing fine silk floral embroidered braids too - very fine and amazing colour - but the one we wanted came with a whole costume so it was out of the question! She is currently trying to find us one we can buy on its own so we can use it in these photos.

By the way, rather different but equally special is an antique Devil puppet with one foot and one cloven hoof that we found in a shop way out of town. He is incredible - amazing carving and very old, and we will try to include him somewhere. Right now he hangs in our hallway - our little cat hit him yesterday for some reason!

There are still some very wonderful and beautiful things here, though it can take some looking to find them.