Crystal Balls in Art

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Crystal Balls in Art

All of the material you have access to here -- the instructive booklets, the nostalgic postcards, the boldly graphic ephemera, and all of the historical information researched and shared from the mind of the woman who is making it all happen -- can easily fit into one 8 x 10 foot room in an old Victorian farmhouse, but you would never see it without the investment of the time it takes to produce such a site and the caloric input such a site requires in the form of food for the writer, graphic designer, and database manager, as well as the US currency needed to pay for the computers, software applications, scanners, electricity, and internet connectivity that bring it out of that little room and into the world.

So, as you can see, this site is the darling of many, and it is growing at a rapid rate ... but although it is "free," there also is a cost. The financial support of my Patreon subscribers -- my Patrons -- underwrites this cost.

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Crystal Balls in Art

IMPORTANT NOTICE This is a site devoted to HISTORICAL IMAGES AND TEXTS. If you are triggered by words used to describe people in the past or by seeing cartoon images drawn in the past, please leave this site now. It is for HISTORIANS and not for you. Please see the page Palmistry and Palm Readers for an explanation of the historical use of the word "gypsies" in the context of fortune telling by Romani people and other people. Thank you.

Fortune tellers, wizards, gypsies, and swamis are the ones who perform crystal gazing in 20th century art. Sometimes the crystal balls appear all by themselves, in no one's hands; sometimes they are the toold of diviners. This page of crystal balls in art specifically covers commercial art. I have done my best to identify the artists, but i await information on quite a few, as commercial artists were not usually allowed to sign their work when these pieces were made.

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  Unknown Artist: Life-size Budweiser Beer in-store stand-up display printed on cardboard, 1957. The crystal-gazer's words are written in script on her table: "I See You Have Excellent Taste." The rest of the ad reads, "Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser, King of Beers, America's Social Companion, Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Missouri."

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  Unknown Artist: Budweiser Beer magazine advertisement (detail), 1957. The background colour has been changed to green from that of the store display, which was blue. It reads "Drink Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser, America's Social Companion."

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  Unknown Artist. Colour Budweiser Beer advertisement (detail), 1957. In this version of the ad, the background is purple, the beer bottle is gone now, and only the glass of beer remains.

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  Gene-Pressler: Gypsy Pin-Up Woman with a crystal ball,1925.

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  Unknown Artist: Absorene advertising pamphlet cover. "The Ball of Magic Makes Clean Healthy Rooms. Absorene Cleans Wall Paper and Window Shades. The Absorene Mfg Co., Saint Louis, Missouri. Dry Cleaner for Washable Wall Paper." The Aborene company was founded in 1891 and is still in business. The tag-line "For Sale By" was typeset for surprinting with the names of stores that carried the product.

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  John Romita: cover for "Secret Hearts" No. 67, April 1960, published by by DC Comics, New York. This romance comic shows a carnival reader predicting love troubles to a frightened your woman by reading a crystal ball. Note that she is wearing a polka-dot sun dress and her boyfriend can be identified as such because he holds the matching jacket for her. Above in the tent we see astrology symbols, and behind the young woman is a Palmistry chart. Such tales usually end with the Gypsy having been wrong about there being a rival, and the woman learning to trust her lover and not a carnival fortune teller.

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  Zacher for L. W. de Laurence occult goods catalogue, Chicago.

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  Mahmoud Farschchian: "The Crystal Ball."

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  Unknown Artist (Monogram may be A.B.D.). Cover of "La Vellma's Vaudeville Budget for Mind-Readers, Magicians, and Ventriloquists" by David J. Lustig.

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  Unknown Photographer and Photo-Retoucher / Artist, "Always Buy Chesterfields," Chesterfield cigarette magazine ad featuring Virginia Mayo, 1947.

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  "Alexander: Crystal-Seer Knows Sees Tells ALL," theatrical poster by Frederick Eugene 'Kid' Jones (signed as Av Yaga Bombay) for stage magician Claude Alexander Conlin.

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  "Alexander: Crystal Seer, Sees Your Life from the Cradle to the Grave," theatrical poster by Frederick Eugene 'Kid' Jones (signed as Av Yaga Bombay) for stage magician Claude Alexander Conlin.

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  "Alexander: The Man Who Knows," theatrical poster by Frederick Eugene 'Kid' Jones (signed as Av Yaga Bombay) for stage magician Claude Alexander Conlin.

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  Unknown Artist, cover for "Walker's Old Moore's Almanac," London, 1938.

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  Unknown artist, Hyatt Roller Bearings Crystal Ball magazine ad, 1944.

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  Unknown artist, Kaiser Aluminum Crystal Ball magazine ad.

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  Unknown Artist: Magazine add for the Seaboard Air Line Railway in "Country Life in America," December 1908; the reader combines a crystal ball, playing cards, and palmistry to predict that "The straight line in your palm is not straighter than the straight line to the palms."

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  Unknown Artist, Pears' Soap magazine ad featuring an "Indian crystal gazer" who reveals beauty secrets to an upper-class Edwardian woman.

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  Unknown Artist, cover for sheet music for "The Crystal Gazer by Frank Petch, Featured and Broadcast by Donald Peers," published by Irwin Dash Music Co., London.

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  Unknown Artist, magazine ad for Tzigane ("Gypsy") perfume by Corday of Paris, circa 1937 -- "Foretelling a romantic future; Tzigane, for the Gypsy in your soul; foretelling a crescendo of conquest; toujours Moi, always Me."

catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
Your Wate and Fate

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Special thanks to my dear husband and creative partner nagasiva yronwode for illustrations, scans, and clean-ups.

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