Bicycle Favole
Bicycle Favole playing cards featuring the designs of Victoria Francés, USA, 2013
Victoria Francés is an established Spanish illustrator, born in Valencia in 1982. Her first volume of illustrations appeared in print, in 2004, entitled Favole 1: Laìgrimas de Piedra (Stone Tears). Favole 2: Libeìrame (Set Me Free) was launched in 2005, and in 2006 the third title of the Favole series was published: Gelida Luz (Frozen light).
This pack of cards, published under the Bicycle brand by the United States Playing Card Company in 2013 reproduces a selection of Francés’ art prints based on the universe of Favole. Her beautiful and intricate artwork features butterflies, vampires and delicate floral patterns, and seems highly influenced by both the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and works of Gothic romantic fantasy. See the box►
Above: Bicycle Favole playing cards featuring the designs of Victoria Francés, published under the Bicycle brand by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 2013.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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