Crystal Balls in Art

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  • Patreon Release Date: August 7th, 2023.
  • Public Release Date: August 7th, 2024.

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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.

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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.


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


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