In the words of Monty Python, "...and now for something completely different." Today, I thought I would share pictures of 3 original playing card costume designs all signed and dated "Wilhelm 88". I acquired these some time ago, not knowing what they were, but appreciating their beauty, artistic skill and playing card theme. In trying to figure out what these were, I was aided by some very small wording around the central spade pip shown on the spade figure which read "Theatre Royal Drury Lane". I looked up both this theater and the artist's name online and discovered that Wilhelm was the name used by a well-known English costume designer originally born as William Charles John Pitcher in 1858. He created numerous costume designs for many dramatic productions and for several different theaters. These 3 pieces, then, are original costume designs from 1888 but I do not know for what production. The Victoria & Albert Museum has a similar beautiful piece, signed and dated the same, in it's collection for the role of the Queen of Spades in the December 1888 Theatre Royal Drury Lane production of the English children's tale and pantomime, Babes in the Wood which, as serious playing card collectors know, has it's own American deck listed as SE1 in the Hochman encyclopedia which commemorates the 75th performance of this show at the Boston Theatre on January 10th, 1893. I have been unable to determine, though, whether these 3 designs are for characters in that same production. Although these images look like jacks or knaves to me, they are entitled "10 Spades", "Diamonds 10" and "10. Halberdier Pages Clubs", respectively. Obviously, the character with what appears to be a sandwich board featuring the 10 of Diamonds without indices makes the most sense to me in relation to it's title. The back of each of these 3 pieces has names and numbers written in pencil but, again, I cannot determine if these represent additional playing card characters or actor's names from that specific production. The other thing that I also do not know here is whether or not there exists an image for a heart character so that all 4 suits might be represented. Be that as it may, I find them to be particularly beautiful and a worthy addition to any collection.
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