ABOUT THIS COLLECTION  
Produced by M.J. Moriarity Playing Cards of Cincinnati, Ohio, each deck of its “Movie Souvenir Playing Cards” contained 53 cards, including Charlie Chaplin, fittingly chosen as the joker. A 54th card described the collection, calling it “the greatest novelty ever made in Souvenir Playing Cards,” with “everyone a favorite of yours,” although many of those favorites, both actors and actresses, are forgotten today. Subsequent editions featured new cards over the next three or four years, before publication stopped. Many big names of the silent era like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow and Greta Garbo don’t appear in any version because they hadn’t achieved stardom yet. The reverse of each card was the same colorful scene from “The Chariot Race,” a painting by Alexander von Wagner
 
COLLECTION DETAILS
Series title: M.J. Moriarty Movie Souvenir Playing Cards
Series size: 8 artworks
Edition: Limited edition of 1000
Proof of Ownership: Certification on the Ethereum blockchain under the ERC1155 protocol. Each artwork is delivered privately and directly to collectors as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that guarrante proof of ownership.
Format: Pieces consist of PNG files sized 2160x3840 pixels - 150 dpi.
Medium: Photography, illustration
Artwork materials:  Photographic paper, illustration paper
Contract Address: 0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e
ID: 2749212597480566...
 
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Each desk contains halftone photographs of silent film stars, probably provided by studio publicity departments. Halftone image making and printing became a popular reproduction process for the mass production of photographic images in newspapers and books at the time, but did not attract much attention from the photographic art community, which favored the photogravure and collotype printing processes.
 
COLLECTION CREDITS
Historical curatorship: HARI - Historical Art Research Institute (HARI Editions)
Artwork: Movie Souvenir Card Co.
Year of original pulbication: 1916
Post-production: HARI - Historical Art Research Institute (HARI Editions)
Digital art supervisor: Marie-Lou Desmeules
Editorial: Braden Phillips
Historical research: Evangelos Rosios, Braden Phillips
Executive production: Victor Zabrockis
 
RIGHTS OVERVIEW
Source of artwork: Wikimedia Commons
Underlying work rights: PD Worldwide
Digital copyrights: PD Wikimedia