Provot...

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Dear friends,

Yesterday I was happily surprised by the mail, since a package from the Flornoys arrived. That’s usually as good as Christmas, and this time it was no exception. What came in the mail was one copy of the new industrial-printed edition of the Provot deck. The Provot is a regular deck of playing cards. Well, perhaps ‘regular’ isn’t the right word in that the deck is absolutely beautiful. It has squared corners, no numbers in the corners, and it is a one way deck, this is, each character is depicted full body. The deck has no Joker and the cards’s backs are white. I have the hand-stenciled version, which is the first deck Jean-Claude printed when he moved into Saint Suzanne. Provot was a paper mill owner, a paper and card maker who printed this deck in 1793. Jean Claude found the wooden plates for this deck at a museum there and printed a limited version which is absolutely gorgeous. Recently, he was asked by the same museum to run a mass-produced edition of the deck so it can be sold there. The result is very close to the hand-stenciled version. In fact, at a first glance it could be hard to tell them apart. Both decks feel pretty much the same. The deck is printed in the same stock used for the hand-stenciled version -the same stock the hand-stenciled versions of the Noblet and Dodal are printed on- and although the colors aren’t identical they are equally sumptuous, saturated and pure. I wish they would print the upcoming Dodal in the exact same way!

The ‘new’ things about this deck are a very nice booklet in which Jean-Claude talks a little bit about the iconography of playing cards and the diverse ‘portrait styles’ we see in them. He also tell us why the back of the cards were white, and how playing cards were printed, and taxed in these times. The other new thing is the box. Instead of the white box carrying only Flornoy’s name and address, as in the hand-stenciled version, this box has printed the Jack of Clubs on one side, and on the side it shows a gorgeous coat of arm which is a composite from the insignias belonging to Saint Suzanne’s four main families.

Here are a couple of picks (don’t pay attention to the main behind the curtain):


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Yesterday I took the deck with me when I went to do some readings. People’s jaws dropped at the beauty of it, which is a lot to say for a deck of playing cards.


Best,


EE
What’s honeymoon salad? Lettuce alone
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