A picture of Justice provokes new thoughts

A collaged "klosterarbeit" picture of Justice leads a serious character to contemplative thoughts.

We based our Justice picture (scroll down to see the final card) on a wonderful handmade vintage piece of “klosterarbeit” (churchwork or monastery or convent work) that we sourced from Vienna. It is a mixture of fabric, paint and “dresden paper” – simply wonderful. It came as one of a pair, the other being a picture of St. Cecilia. We have shown both here. Although our klosterarbeit pieces are later, pictures like these were extensively produced from the 16th and 17th century onwards.

For this card, we wanted to show more of a close-up and a new way of looking at the image. It’s very different from our original Baroque Bohemian Cats’ Tarot Justice card as this time round, we wanted something more emotional and intense.

In its totality, it’s not so obviously a theatrical scene, but we imagine it as a souvenir picture of a famous performance. Such pictures became very popular in 19th century England and were known as “tinsel prints”, as the print was usually coloured in and “tinselled” with pieces of metallic paper and sometimes fabric.

So the cat looking at this picture may have a whole variety of thoughts going through his head about a theatrical experience involving an actress playing the part of Justice.

This is the final image. Though the collaged cat picture has delicately pretty fabrics and prints, the Justice cat herself is a stern figure who brandishes her sword and scales.

By the way, the clouds on this picture are drawn in a characteristic way that was commonly used in baroque theatrical scenes – you’ll see more like them soon in our Chariot card.