Brown Dots On Ancient Tarots Of Bologna

thinbuddha said:

I hate to revive an old debate, but doesn't the deck (referenced as "Sicily, Antonio Monasta, probably 17th century" on this page) pretty much settle things once and for all? I mean clearly the brown markings (including the familiar brown dots) found here are intentional?

Click to expand...

To me, this particular deck looks like a stencil wasn't used at all...and that a child used his/her fingertip to apply paint to areas that he/she was told to....but obviously a finger tip does not do the job very well.... it really does not look like a brush was used, considering how wide the line of paint is.

What's the story behind this set of cards? Where were they found, what's known about them? If the splotches were placed deliberately, they may have not been so splotchy at the time--did the cards get wet at some point?

prudence that's an interesting point. Even on older decks where stencils were used, oftentimes the colors are applied haphazardly and it's hard to conceive they were worried about precision.

Posting some links on the production processes.

http://historicgames.com/gamemakers/cardmaking.html

http://www.wopc.co.uk/history/page_7.html
http://www.wopc.co.uk/usa/whitney-inventory.html
http://www.wopc.co.uk/cards/stencilling.html

My theory; it is well known that paint was made up of different pigments according to colour. It seems highly feasible to me that a certain paint (and not others) would react to the paper over the centuries, blot and spread and "spoil" the paper, but only spread so far. Brown would have an ingredient which yellow didn't, thus brown reacted and yellow didn't.