This album of unique impressions of hands was collated during the 1890s by the celebrated chiromancer known as “Cheiro” and “Count Louis Hamon.” Travelling to consult with patrons across Europe and America, Cheiro led a popular resurgence of interest in palmistry as part of the ‘occult revival’ that developed out of Victorian England.
Throughout the 1890s, Cheiro’s visitors book swelled with glowing testimonials from members of the fin de siècle glitterati on both sides of the Atlantic: Thomas Edison, Mata Hari, Gladstone, Sarah Bernhardt, General Kitchener and Annie Besant each presented their palms for consultation. Dame Nellie Melba described him as “wonderful,” whilst Mark Twain praised his “humiliating accuracy” and Oscar Wilde declared after a successful reading that “it is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”
This book presents an important selection of Cheiro’s most famous prints, taken in London and Boston between 1894-1895. The hands of ‘The Mahatma’ are shown besides the prints of Liverpudlian murderer George Kelly, Titanic victim W. T. Stead, department store founder William Whitely and theatre pioneers Herbert and Maud Beerbohm Tree, as well as prints of Cheiro and his assistant Cola’s own hands. With no commentary or explanation beyond the signatures, dates and occasional location inscribed directly on the images, the interpretation of these hands was unlocked subsequently in Cheiro’s prolific writings on palmistry.
Cheiro documented his clients’ palms using a process he termed ‘smoke printing’. By setting fire to camphor, a paper could be blackened with the smoke. The impression of the hand (as a negative image) was pressed into the paper and then sprayed with fixative, with an outline of the hand pencilled around the print. These images were popularized in his book, The Language of the Hand (still in print today), where they were accompanied by a referential analysis of character.
This album was acquired directly by a private collector from the Charles H. van Horne collection, prior to the sale of his chiromancy materials to Princeton University Library through Sotheby’s in 1993.