Palmistry Guide: “The Telltale Hand” - Cavallini decorative wrap

Featured here is a Cavallini decorative wrap poster of Italian origin. The poster is approximately 28” tall by 20” wide and is subtly representative of Victorian-era design aesthetics. The main composition of the work features an illustration of someone’s right hand over a sky blue background, alongside header/title text that reads “Palmistry Guide: ‘The Telltale Hand’”. Towards the mid-upper right resides text that depicts a key-index referring to each of the symbols in order; the cross, the grill, the island, the square, and the triangle. Additionally, subheadings are present alongside the border of the illustrated hand,  depicting the various ‘expressions’ that each finger serves on the hand. 

The estimated date of creation of this work is referenced to be sometime in the late 20th century (1989-1992). The work itself references the art or practice of palmistry; a method of pseudoscientific reading/fortune telling that is said to reveal expressions about a person’s character or future actions through examination of the creases and lines on their hand.  Such as the “line of the heart”, “line of the head”, “line of the sun”, “line of life”, “line of health”, and so on.