Malpertuis Lenormand

Neil Lovell's second Lenormand in this catalog: after the Chelsea's Arts and Crafts poster clarity, the Malpertuis works the antique register, thirty-nine cards drawing on the colours and textures of old oil paintings and watercolours, designed as a companion to his Tyldwick Tarot's haunted-manor world. Malpertuis is the fox's castle in medieval beast-fable, and the name carries the mood: aged, literary, slightly labyrinthine. The review notes it stands alone despite the companion design, and it does, but the pairing is the richer use: Tyldwick's interiors and Malpertuis's emblems as one estate's two instruments, tarot in the great rooms, Lenormand in the corridors. Lovell's painterly finish gives the fixed symbols the patina of found objects. It suits Tyldwick owners completing the household, antique-aesthetic Lenormand readers, and collectors of Lovell's self-published craft. Readers wanting bright modern clarity have his Chelsea; this house keeps its curtains drawn, on purpose.